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1929 A debut ton for 19-year-old Archie Jackson in Adelaide. His 164, made in five hours and 20 minutes, gave Australia a slender first-innings lead, but England eventually won a cracking match by only 12 runs. Jackson was hailed as being almost as good a batsman as Don Bradman, but within four years he died from tuberculosis.

1991 Records galore in Wellington. With New Zealand 148 for 2 in the second innings, still 175 behind Sri Lanka, Martin Crowe and Andrew Jones saved the match and more with an amazing partnership of 467. It was the highest for the third wicket in first-class cricket at the time, as well as the highest for any wicket in Tests. After such a meaty stand it was fitting that Arjuna Ranatunga was the man to dismiss them both - Crowe agonisingly for 299, the highest score by a New Zealander in Tests till Brendon McCullum made a triple-hundred in 2014.

1990 Virgin territory for Richard Hadlee, who became the first man to take 400 Test wickets when he bowled Sanjay Manjrekar in the first Test, in Christchurch, on this day. Hadlee took seven wickets and Danny Morrison six, while John Wright made a nine-hour 185 to help New Zealand to a comfortable ten-wicket victory.

1995 Zimbabwe completed their maiden Test victory in their 11th Test, a little over two years after their first match, beating Pakistan in Harare by an innings and 64 runs. Grant Flower scored an unbeaten 201, while his brother Andy and Guy Whittall contributed hundreds towards Zimbabwe's first-innings score of 544 for 4 declared. Heath Streak took 6 for 90 to help dismiss Pakistan for 322 in the first innings, and added three more to his kitty as they fell for 158 in the follow-on.

1979 India racked up their highest Test total at the time, 644 for 7 declared, against West Indies in Kanpur. Faoud Bacchus went on to make a career-best 250, after Gundappa Viswanath (179), Anshuman Gaekwad (101) and Mohinder Amarnath (101 not out) had all made hundreds. Bacchus' eight-and-a-half-hour innings took West Indies to 452 for 8. Rain had ruled out play for nearly two days, and adding a sixth day was of no use. India won the six-Test series 1-0.

1989 Test double-hundreds against the 1980s West Indies didn't grow on trees. In fact, there were only two, and Dean Jones made one of them on this day in Adelaide. His blistering 216 was the highlight of a drawn game that gave West Indies the series 3-1. This is really where it all turned around for Australia: having lost the first three Tests, they won the fourth improbably and scrapped for a draw here.

1935 Birth of the Pakistan batsman Wallis Mathias, who played 21 Tests between 1955 and 1962, and was the first Christian to play Test cricket for the country. At his best a fluent strokeplayer, Mathias never really got going at the highest level and averaged only 23.72. The closest he got to a Test hundred was successive scores in the 70s in the West Indies in 1957-58. He died in his native Karachi in 1994.

1988 A special one-dayer for England at the MCG to commemorate 200 years of white settlement in Australia. Geoff Marsh - the only man to exceed 37 - decided the match with a patient 87. This was also the one-day debut of Neal Radford and Paul Jarvis, although their combined figures of 20-0-103-0 and zero runs meant it was not one to tell the grandchildren about.

1986 Allrounder Mahmudullah, born on this day, starred in Bangladesh's first overseas win - taking eight wickets against West Indies (albeit a strike-affected B side) in Kingstown. He was named vice-captain in 2011 and played a key role in the middle order, including during the ODI series win over West Indies a year later. But it was towards the end of 2014 that Mahmudullah really made an impact, averaging 77.71 with the bat in ODIs in five months, culminating in a successful World Cup, where his two centuries - a match-winning one against England, and a nearly victorious one against New Zealand - took Bangladesh to the knockouts of the tournament for the first time. He also made four fifities in four successive Tests around then.

Salman Butt got a ten-year sentence but it was suspended for five years

2011 The ICC banned Pakistan's Salman Butt, Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Asif after a tribunal found them guilty of spot-fixing during the Lord's Test in 2010. The sanctions against Butt (ten years) and Asif (seven) had five and two years suspended; Amir received a five-year sentence. All three appealed the bans. In November 2011 a London court handed jail terms to the three: Butt was sentenced to two years and six months, Asif one year, and Amir six months. The player agent Mazhar Majeed, who was caught on tape discussing the no-balls to be bowled in the Test, was sentenced to two years and eight months. In early 2012, Amir was released after spending three months in the Portland Young Offenders Institution. In January 2015, he signed to play grade two cricket for a Karachi-based team after the ICC permitted him to play domestic cricket under the auspices of the PCB, eight months before the scheduled end of his ban. A year later he was playing for Pakistan once again, while Butt and Asif returned to domestic cricket.

1889 A cricketing Patsy is born. Middlesex's Patsy Hendren is the only (male) international cricketer with such a first name (although it wasn't his real name - Patsy was an alias for Elias), but there was nothing soft about him: he averaged 47 from 51 Tests, and in all, cracked 170 first-class centuries. A master against spin in particular, his top score in Tests was a match-winning, unbeaten 205 against West Indies in Trinidad in 1929-30, made on his 41st birthday. Hendren also played football for a number of clubs, including Manchester City. A favourite with spectators both in England and Australia, Hendren scored 57,611 runs in a 31-year career - only Jack Hobbs (61,237) and Frank Woolley (58,969) have scored more.

1984 Perhaps England's most ignominious defeat after the one in which they were blown away for 46 by Curtly Ambrose. They were bowled out for 82 and 93 by New Zealand - Richard Hadlee being the destroyer. New Zealand got 307 in 72 overs on a substandard pitch; Hadlee was sensational: he walloped 18 boundaries in an 81-ball 99 (the only fifty of the match) then tucked rapaciously into England with 3 for 16 and 5 for 28. In all, the match lasted just 11 hours, 41 minutes. Tony Pigott, who postponed his wedding to play what was his only Test, must have wished he hadn't bothered.

1970 An outstanding talent, Darren Lehmann, who was born today, always struggled to command a regular place in a strong Australian side. He scored three centuries in the space of five Tests in 2003 (though two of them came against Bangladesh) before being laid low by injury. He was more of a fixture in the one-day team and had the honour of hitting the winning runs in the World Cup final at Lord's in 1999. He was a key member of the side that defended the title four years later, although his entry into the tournament was delayed by a suspension for a racist dressing-room outburst. He played his final ODI in 2005 and retired from domestic cricket at the end of the 2007-08 season. He then worked as a coach in the IPL before being appointed the Australia coach just a few weeks before the start of the 2013 Ashes. His first few years in charge were rather up-and-down in terms of the national team's results. Australia lost the urn 3-0 in 2013, won it back with a 5-0 whitewash at home six months later, and then lost it again in 2015. Lehmann oversaw a continuation of Australia's horrid run in Asia, including an unprecedented 3-0 whitewash in Sri Lanka, but he also oversaw the end of that run, with a crushing 333-run win over India in Pune, in 2017.

1939 A 74 in his first innings and two hundreds in his first four Tests: the England opener Brian Luckhurst, who was born today, had a near-perfect start to his Test career. And in a successful Ashes campaign too. But he never really hit those heights again, and a working-over from Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson four years later was the last act of his Test career.

1970 A first Test hundred for the great Barry Richards. He whacked 140 off only 164 deliveries against Australia, in Durban, one of two three-figure scores he made at this level. There might have been many, many more but for the political situation in South Africa, which restricted Richards to just four appearances.

1959 Australia regained the Ashes with a ten-wicket win in Adelaide, having to score just 35 after England followed on with a first-innings deficit of 236. Opener Colin McDonald scored a career-best 170 after Peter May made the bold move to put Australia in. Richie Benaud took nine in the match with his legbreaks, while debutant right-arm fast bowler Gordon Rorke took five. Australia finished the series 4-0 with a nine-wicket win in Melbourne.

1981Marlon Samuels, born today, was talented enough at the start of his career to be compared to Viv Richards, before he had played first-class cricket. He scored his maiden hundred in Kolkata in 2002 but struggled with his discipline off the field. In 2007, Samuels was embroiled in a match-fixing controversy after the Nagpur police alleged he had passed on match-related information to an alleged bookie. In 2008, after his bowling action was deemed illegal, Samuels was found guilty of match-fixing and banned for two years. He returned in 2011, and in England in 2012, against a top-class bowling attack in difficult conditions, scored 386 runs in five innings. Later that year his gutsy 78 in the World T20 final helped West Indies to their first world title since the 1979 World Cup. He made a Test-best 260 in November that year in Bangladesh, but only two 100-plus scores in 20 Tests thereafter. In 2015 he was banned from bowling for a year when his action was found to be illegal once again. In 2016, history repeated itself when Samuels once again helped West Indies win the World T20 final.

1889 It's a bit of a mystery that Ernest Tyldesley, who was born today, played only 14 Tests for England. He averaged exactly 55, with nine fifty-plus scores in 20 innings, but his stylish strokeplay was not to the selectors liking, despite Tyldesley later becoming the first Lancastrian to score 100 hundreds.

1990 Birth of fast bowler Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who, as a 19-year-old, dismissed Sachin Tendulkar for his first first-class duck in Indian domestic cricket. Shortly before his 23rd birthday, Bhuvneshwar made his India debut, in an ODI against Pakistan. His first six Tests - all wins - were at home, against Australia and West Indies, but he didn't make much of an impact, taking nine wickets at 37.88, despite bowling against weak batting line-ups. But he was much better on the tour of England in 2014, taking 19 wickets and making three half-centuries, outscoring some of the specialists.

1882Gordon White, born today, played 17 Tests for South Africa between 1906 and 1912, scored 872 runs at 30.06 and took nine wickets. He toured England twice in his career but played them better at home - scoring two centuries and two half-centuries in nine Tests. He played Australia in two Tests as well, in the Triangular Tournament in England in 1912. He died in Palestine during the First World War in 1918.

1976Tony Suji, younger brother of Martin, born on this day, had a longer international career than his stats would have you believe. In 60 ODIs he went past 50 only once. His hundred against Bermuda in the 2005 Intercontinental Cup semi-final was his first in competitive cricket, and only the second time he had passed 50 in 78 innings. He was a member of both the 1999 and 2003 World Cup squads.

1986 Wicketkeeper-batsman Gary Wilson made his Ireland one-day debut after the 2007 World Cup, but was a regular member of the side by the time the next World Cup came along, featuring in the famous win over England and also over West Indies in 2015. Wilson made his maiden ODI century against Netherlands in 2010 and a half-century against West Indies in the 2011 World Cup.

1992 The birth of Mitchell Santner, who broke into the New Zealand side shortly after the retirement of his role model, Daniel Vettori. A steady left-arm spinner and useful lower-order bat, Santner initially made his greatest impact as a T20I bowler. He collected ten wickets at 11.40 in the 2016 World T20 in India, including figures of 4 for 11 against the hosts in the tournament opener.

Fred Trueman: not only deadly but had more curses than Captain Haddock

1931 Fiery Fred is born. In Frederick Sewards Trueman's day, he was the best fast bowler in the world, and he remains probably the best England have ever produced. A rhythmic, extremely quick bowler, and a coarse, confrontational character with more curses than Captain Haddock, he demolished India in his first series, and his debut, at Headingley, really was the Trueman Show: Fred took 3 for 0 in eight balls to reduce India to a staggering 0 for 4. Later in that series he took 8 for 31 in Manchester, and he eventually finished with 307 wickets, at the time a Test record. When he retired, Trueman joined the BBC's Test Match Special commentary team, where his grumpy musings on modern life and cricket - he once said Ian Botham "ouldn't bowl a hoop downhill" - were legendary.

1886 The birth of one of England's best - and longest-lived - wicketkeepers. Tiger Smith was a Brummie through and through, and an outstanding keeper towards the end of cricket's Golden Age. He could bat too - he scored 20 first-class hundreds, including one before lunch at the age of 41. He went on to become an umpire, coached Warwickshire to the Championship in 1951, and in his twilight years was sought out by players for his blunt but penetrative advice.

1995 The end of the line for two old English soldiers. Graham Gooch and Mike Gatting played their last Test innings on this day, in Perth. By the end Gooch cut a dishevelled figure at the crease - remember that caught-and-bowled off the first ball of the day in Melbourne? - and he was caught and bowled again here when he carted one back to Craig McDermott via the bowler's shoulder. And fittingly for a man who was bowled in exactly a quarter of his Test innings, Gatting lost his stumps to McDermott. Between them Gooch and Gatting played 197 Tests, in which they scored over 13,000 runs.

1873 Birth of the only man to clear the pavilion at Lord's. Albert Trott whacked Monty Noble out of the ground when he was playing for MCC against Australia. He played three Tests for Australia and then two for England after joining the Lord's ground staff and qualifying for Middlesex. On his Test debut, against England in Adelaide in 1894-95, he took 8 for 43 in the second innings. But Trott, one of the most successful imports of all time, succumbed to drink and gradually his ability waned. Broke and in ill health, he committed suicide at the age of 41.

1948 The Don's last Test innings in Australia. Don Bradman had to retire hurt on 57 against India in Melbourne when he tore a muscle under his left ribs. Shame, really, as he was moving smoothly towards a fifth century in six innings in the series.

2010 The biggest chase in first-class cricket. Yusuf Pathan scored an unbeaten 210 (helped by South Zone, who dropped him five times) to go with his first-innings 108 as West Zone chased 536 to win the Duleep Trophy in Hyderabad. It surpassed the previous highest first-class chase, of 513 for 9 by Central Province against Southern Province in the 2003-04 Sri Lankan domestic season.

1963 A nearly man is born. David Capel had the definitive impossible job when he came into an England side that was looking for the new Ian Botham in the mid-1980s, and after swimming confidently for a time, he soon sank. Quite simply, Capel was not good enough to justify his place with bat or ball, and averages of 15 and 50 from 15 Tests tell the story. He made 98 in Karachi in 1987-88, but he also had 13 scores of 6 or less in 25 innings. His energetic medium pace was pretty innocuous, but he did have a distinguished rabbit: Viv Richards, whom he dismissed three times. And he did play his part in one of England's most unlikely successes, as the most sedate of Graham Gooch's four-man seam attack in Jamaica in 1989-90.

1983 Temperamental Indian fast bowler Sreesanth, who was born today, made news as much for his occasional brilliance with the ball as for his propensity for controversy. He figured prominently in two of India's finest wins of the late 2000s - in Jamaica in 2006 and Johannesburg later that year. But it was mostly downhill since there, what with him being slapped by Harbhajan Singh after an IPL game, a series of injuries, and declining form. Sreesanth's fall was complete when he was among three Rajasthan Royals players arrested in May 2013 for the alleged fulfilling of promises made to bookmakers in the IPL, following which the BCCI's disciplinary committee found him guilty of spot-fixing and banned him for life.

1997 Seemingly plucked straight from the students' union bar, Daniel Vettori became New Zealand's youngest Test cricketer at 18 years 10 days against England in Wellington. He had played only two first-class games. Vettori bowled very respectably, taking 2 for 98 with his left-arm spin, and his first wicket was Nasser Hussain, who had been his first first-class wicket a couple of weeks earlier.

1953 Australia's youngest male cricketer made his debut. At 17 years, 239 days, Ian Craig was hardly out of school when he was picked for the fifth Test against South Africa, in Melbourne. A crisp, classy middle-order batsman, Craig started well with 53 and 47 (although Australia lost, despite amassing 520 in the first innings), but his career turned out to be more Jason Donovan than Kylie Minogue: he reached 50 only once more in a further 10 Tests, although he did captain Australia in South Africa in 1957-58.

1947 It isn't often that two players both score two hundreds in a Test, and the first time was in Adelaide on this day, when Arthur Morris followed in Denis Compton's footsteps in the fourth Test between Australia and England. A less palatable record in this match went to Godfrey Evans: he took 97 minutes to score his first run. Not even Messrs Tavaré, Bailey and Mackay could top that, but New Zealand's Geoff Allott did when he went four minutes better (or worse) in Auckland in 1998-99.

1970 A Graeme Pollock masterclass. Pollock rammed 274 in the second Test against Australia, in Durban, including the small matter of 43 fours. It was the highest score in Tests by a South African until Daryll Cullinan went past. It took South Africa to 622 for 9, and Australia were trounced out of sight.

1982Fidel Edwards, born today, was spotted in the nets by Brian Lara and called up for his Test debut after just one match for Barbados. He promptly took five wickets against Sri Lanka in Jamaica in June 2003, added five in his first overseas Test, and six in his first one-day international. Edwards was fast and could swing (and reverse-swing) it, but when going for out-and-out pace he often proved costly. In 2008 he took 7 for 87 in the first innings of the drawn Test in Napier. But injuries troubled him thereafter, and while he played the IPL, Edwards missed Test cricket between 2009 and 2011. In his first series on return, against India at home, he took 19 wickets in three Tests but lack of consistency cost him his spot at the end of 2012.

1986 The birth of Brendan Taylor, who was fast-tracked into the Zimbabwe national team against Sri Lanka in 2003-04 at the age of 18 after the withdrawal of the rebel players. He scored an unbeaten 60 in Zimbabwe's unexpected win over Australia in the World T20 in 2007, and took over wicketkeeping duties when Tatenda Taibu dropped out. His first ODI hundred came against Bangladesh in 2009, and he followed up with centuries against Sri Lanka and South Africa the following year. Taylor finished as Zimbabwe's stand-out batsman at the 2011 World Cup. In June 2011 he was named captain of the national side and celebrated with four centuries in his first seven Tests in charge. He also piled up hundreds in each innings against Bangladesh in Harare in 2013, the first Zimbabwean to achieve the feat. Taylor retired from international cricket after the 2015 World Cup, choosing to sign a Kolpak deal with Nottinghamshire.

1964 Birthday boy Colin Miller's decision to switch from pace to offspin in a club game because of an ankle injury turned his career around. He went on to take 12 for 119 against South Australia and broke Chuck Fleetwood-Smith's 63-year-old record for most wickets in a Sheffield Shield season. It earned him a call-up to the international side at 34 and he remained a reliable performer till his retirement in 2002. His only match ten-for in Tests came against West Indies in Adelaide in 2000. Apart from his skills, he was well-known for changing the colour of his hair, which earned him the nickname "Funky".

1971 Birth of a man who was always on the fringes. Brad Hogg, the slow left-arm chinaman bowler, made his debut in the one-off Test against India in the 1996-97 season. On a sharp Delhi turner he got belted for 69 runs in 17 overs, and that was the last Test he played for a long time. However, he made a satisfying comeback into the national side for the 2003 World Cup. The 2007 World Cup was even more special - 21 wickets at 15.80 as Australia cruised through. He quit international cricket in 2007-08 but at the age of 40, Hogg starred with 13 wickets for his T20 franchise, Perth Scorchers, in the 2011-12 Big Bash League. Hogg was picked in Australia's 2014 World T20 squad but went wicketless in the one match he played in the tournament. He continued playing in the BBL, even after turning 45, and was among the leading all-time wicket-takers in the tournament.

1997 An astonishing Shell Trophy match in Hamilton came to an end. Northern Districts' Alex Tait took 16 for 130, the best match figures in New Zealand first-class history... and ended up losing by 212 runs when Auckland bowled his side out for a paltry 32 in their second innings.

1989 A talented left-hand batsman with a style reminiscent of Brian Lara, Darren Bravo, who was born today, is one of the few young stars in world cricket who seems more at home as the length of the format increases. His first century (a big one) arrived in Bangladesh, in his tenth Test. He scored two more in the series in India immediately after. After 12 Tests his run aggregate and average were identical to those of Lara after 12. Bravo scored his first ODI century against Zimbabwe in 2013, but his most memorable innings so far has been his 218 against New Zealand in Dunedin, the highest by a West Indian in a follow-on, which helped his side earn a remarkable draw. Three weeks later, he withdrew from the tour for "personal reasons"; in 2014 he similarly opted out of the tour of South Africa. But on a tough tour of Australia in 2015, with Shivnarine Chanderpaul out of the picture, Bravo showed that he could take over as batting leader, with a century in Hobart and 81 at the MCG.

1999 A day Anil Kumble will never forget. He became only the second man after Jim Laker to take all ten wickets in a Test innings, against Pakistan in Delhi. His 10 for 74 - all ten came in a spell of 18.2 overs for 37 runs - swept India to their first victory over Pakistan in 23 Tests, dating back to 1979-80. With India in a comfortable position, Mohammad Azharuddin instructed Javagal Srinath at the other end to bowl wide of the stumps; he was twice called for wides as a result.

1998 The day Gus Fraser, having not played Test cricket for two years, huffed and puffed his way to 8 for 53 against West Indies in Trinidad. Fraser added three more wickets in the second innings, but his dropping of David Williams off the first ball of the last day ultimately cost England the match. Williams and Carl Hooper took West Indies to the brink of a thrilling three-wicket victory.

1921 South African Athol Rowan often bowled with a metal leg brace because of injuries sustained in the Western Desert. The younger brother of Eric Rowan, who played 26 Tests for South Africa, Athol was capped 15 times between 1947 and 1951. He had an unusual grip for an offspinner, with his spinning finger along rather than across the seam, and a stumbling run-up as a result of his gammy leg. His finest hour came when he bowled South Africa to a tense victory over England at Trent Bridge in 1951. He died in South Africa in 1998.

1857 A multi-talented sportsman is born. The Honourable Alfred Lyttelton was one of seven brothers who played first-class cricket, and as well as playing four Tests for England, he played football for his country and was an outstanding tennis player. He ended with a freakish bowling average of 4.75 after taking 4 for 19 (one of them caught by stand-in wicketkeeper WG Grace) with underarm lobs while bowling in his wicketkeeping pads - declarations were not permitted in those days, so every Englishman got a bowl - against Australia at The Oval in 1884. He died in London in 1913.

1982 A World Cup win for Australia's women, with England their victims in the final in Christchurch. England pottered to 151 for 5 off 60 overs, and though Australia lost wickets steadily, they had six balls and three wickets left when they got home. That gave them victory in, to give it its full name, the Hansells Vita Fresh Women's World Cup. Catchy.

2014 After twice being runners-up, Perth Scorchers finally got to take home the Big Bash League trophy when they beat Hobart Hurricanes by 39 runs in the final, in Perth. Shaun Marsh, sent home from the South African tour due to a calf injury, did most of the damage, along with his brother Mitch. Happily enough for Shaun, after his title-clinching half-century, he was called up to the Australian squad once again, this time to replace an injured Shane Watson.

1952 An impromptu rest day on what should have been the second day of the fifth Test between India and England, in Madras, following the death of King George VI on February 6.

1972Aftab Habib, who was born on this day, was picked for the New Zealand series in 1999 despite never having been on an A tour. England probably thought it would be a good chance to ease him in against substandard opposition. It wasn't. After scores of 1, 6 and a horrible 104-ball 19 that was like watching a man on cricketing death row, Habib was dumped.

1963 A cricketing aesthete is born. Mohammad Azharuddin in full flow was a glorious sight, whipping straight balls through midwicket and carting anything overpitched through the off side. Watching Azhar in his prime was a joyous experience: there were the three hundreds in his first three Tests, the 121 that stole the thunder of Gooch's 333 at Lord's in 1990, and of course that glorious stand with Sachin Tendulkar in Cape Town in 1996-97. But as things stand, Azhar will now be remembered for his involvement in match-fixing rather than his brilliance with the willow.

1994 A landmark day for Kapil Dev. At 10.34am, after 64 minutes of the third Test against Sri Lanka in Ahmedabad, he had Hashan Tillakaratne taken at short leg by Sanjay Manjrekar. It was Kapil's 432nd Test wicket, moving him past Richard Hadlee's world record. The feat was saluted with 432 balloons and a minute's standing ovation. It all overshadowed India's ninth home win in a row, in which the spinners Venkatapathy Raju and Rajesh Chauhan shared 17 wickets. Oh, and there was a pair for Marvan Atapattu, making it five ducks and a 1 (that was, apparently, a wrongly overlooked leg-bye) in his first six Test innings.

1952 India's first Test victory, on their 25th attempt, was set up by left-arm spinner Vinoo Mankad, who cut a swathe through England with 8 for 55 in the fifth Test in Madras. There were four stumpings in the innings, and five in the match, for Khokhan Sen - all off Mankad - both records until Kiran More (with more than a little help from Narendra Hirwani) stumped West Indies in 1987-88. Mankad added four more wickets in the second innings, and with Pankaj Roy and Polly Umrigar making hundreds, an under-strength England side were well beaten by an innings, giving India a share of the series.

1973 A monster partnership between Mushtaq Mohammad and Asif Iqbal set Pakistan up for their first Test win in New Zealand, by an innings and 166 runs in Dunedin. The pair slammed 350 for the fourth wicket in only 275 minutes, Pakistan's highest for any wicket at the time. Mushtaq made 201 and then chipped in with seven wickets to put the Kiwis to sleep.

1976 Bangladesh's first wicketkeeper was born today. Khaled Mashud was tidy and un-flashy behind the stumps, batted at No. 7, and in many instances was the saving grace of Bangladesh's innings. He was made captain in late 2001 but was powerless to halt Bangladesh's woeful run, and quit after their humiliations at the 2003 World Cup. He scored one century in 44 Tests - an unbeaten 103 that helped Bangladesh draw the Test in St Lucia in 2004 after they had collapsed to 79 for 6 in the second innings. Mashud was forced to retire after being omitted from the 2007 World Cup squad, replaced behind the stumps by Mushfiqur Rahim.

1990 Sydney's wettest week for 100 years finished the third Test between Australia and Pakistan as a contest. In fact, it was a miracle that there was any play at all, but the assiduous work of the ground staff enabled 149 overs to be bowled. More than enough time for Mark Taylor to make an unbeaten 101, which took his average after 14 Tests to a mighty 69.95.

1970 A giant fast bowler is born. At 6ft 7in, Cameron Cuffy looked a logical successor to the likes of Patrick Patterson when he came onto the scene in the early 1990s. But like most of his contemporaries, he struggled at Test level. He played for Surrey in the 1990s.

1970 A metronome/nemesis is born. Describing Glenn McGrath in such terms has become a bit of a cliché, but there's a reason for that: no bowler has probed the corridor of uncertainty so inexorably, and no bowler has had such a remorseless capacity to nail the opponent he desires. He had a slowish start to his Test career (he was dropped with an average of 43 after eight Tests), but came of age on the seismic Caribbean tour of 1994-95. In all, McGrath dismissed Mike Atherton 19 times - a Test record - and Brian Lara 13 (almost twice as often as anyone else). A famously incompetent batsman, he received a massive ovation when he scored a fifty against New Zealand in 2004-05. He retired on a high in 2007, having helped Australia to a 5-0 whitewash of England in the home Ashes and a World Cup win where he was Man of the Tournament.

1922 Birth of one of England's greatest spinners. Jim Laker's signature moment was those 19 wickets against Australia at Old Trafford in 1956 - the greatest innings and match figures in Test history (the latter is a first-class record too). Australia can't say they weren't warned: Laker had taken all ten against them for Surrey in a tour match earlier that summer. A modest and revered character, he took 46 wickets at 9.60 each in the five Ashes Tests of 1956. In a Test trial at Bradford in 1950, he returned the staggering figures of 14-12-2-8 - and one of those runs was a gentle one off the mark for his Surrey team-mate Eric Bedser. The Rest of England were bowled out for 27. Laker later became a BBC commentator. He died in Putney in 1986.

2014 New Zealand prevailed over India by 40 runs in a nervy finish in Auckland. Brendon McCullum's double-hundred gave New Zealand a hefty advantage, but they collapsed to 105 all out in the second innings, setting India a target of 407 to get in a little over two days. By the time Virat Kohli and Shikhar Dhawan had added 126 at more than four an over on day four, it began to increasingly look like India would chase it down. But New Zealand's seamers struck back - Neil Wagner picking up career-best match figures of 8 for 126 - and took their side to a memorable victory, but not before MS Dhoni and Ravindra Jadeja briefly threatened to swing the game back in India's favour with a short blaze of big hitting.

2001 It was cold ones all round for Australia, who made it 15 out of 15 with victory over West Indies in the second one-day final in Melbourne. With a 5-0 whitewash of the same opponent in the Tests and ten wins out of ten in the one-day series, this was a perfect summer for Steve Waugh's boys. Though West Indies for once put up a decent fight, the result was never in serious doubt after Mark Waugh caned a majestic 173, the highest one-day score by an Australian.

2003 The eighth World Cup kicked off in Cape Town... with a kick in the teeth for the hosts, South Africa. In a wildly fluctuating match, Brian Lara lined up the boot with a thumping century on his return from serious illness, and South Africa fell three runs short when Lance Klusener failed for the second World Cup match in succession.

1957 Kenya may be struggling to achieve Test status, but an irrefutably Test-class player was born in the country on this day. Qasim Umar played 26 Tests for Pakistan in the 1980s, mostly as opener or at No. 3. He managed two double-hundreds too: 210 against India in Faisalabad in 1984-85, and 206 against Sri Lanka on the same ground a year later. Umar was put out to pasture quite early, though, and played his last Test at 29, after accusing his team-mates of discrimination and drug-trafficking.

1964Hanumant Singh went on to become a slightly taciturn match referee, but as a Test batsman he was more inclined to stamp his authority on proceedings. On this day he punished England with a century on his debut, 105 in the fourth Test, in Delhi. Colin Cowdrey trumped that with 151, and the match petered out into a draw when the Nawab of Pataudi Jr made India's first double-hundred against England. Hanumant served Indian cricket as a national selector and a manager of the national side. He died in November 2006.

1859 Birth of Maurice Read, who was more from the Stewart school than the Athertonian. He was a naturally attacking batsman, and the high point of his 17-Test career was a crucial 35 in a Test against Australia at The Oval in 1890, where no one made a fifty. It enabled England to scramble to their target of 95 with two wickets to spare. Read died in Hampshire in 1929.

1904 When Plum Warner's MCC conceded a first-innings deficit of 51 to Victoria in a tour match at the MCG, it was important for them to get early second-innings wickets. They did: all ten of them. Victoria were all out for 15, the lowest score in Australian first-class cricket history. Without Harry Trott's 9, it really would have been messy. The Aussies were keen to point out that only ten men batted. With a first-class average of 4, the injured Jack Saunders could really have made a difference.

1983 Birth of South African allrounder Ryan McLaren, who was roughed up by Mitchell Johnson twice in the same year. First, in his second Test - coming four years after his debut - in 2014 in Centurion, where a short ball from Johnson crashed into his helmet and left him with a concussion. Second, in the tri-series in Zimbabwe, where he sustained a hairline fracture to his right forearm. Even without the injuries, McLaren's one-day career had a stop-start pattern. In the four years since his debut he had only played 13 ODIs, getting a regular run only in 2013. In 2014 he was South Africa's second-highest wicket-taker in ODIs but was still left out of the squad for the World Cup the following year.

Olonga (in photo), along with Flower, made a powerful political statement in a quiet manner

2003 The day Henry Olonga and Andy Flower defied Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwean regime with an act of selfless bravery and huge dignity. By taking to the field wearing black armbands to mourn "the death of democracy" in their country, they achieved the most forceful and eloquent expression of civil rights in a sporting event since Tommie Smith and John Carlos' black-power salute at the Mexico Olympics in 1968. More than anything, their quiet stand brought into focus an issue that had long been overshadowed by sordid squabbles over money and security. Both men were forced into exile and international retirement after the tournament.

2003 Namibia made their international debut in the Flower-Olonga protest match. Apart from the black armbands, the game is remembered for Craig Wishart's unbeaten 172 off 151 balls, then the highest score by a Zimbabwe batsman. Rain reduced Namibia's target from 341 in 50 overs to 191 in 25.1, but they only managed to reached 104. They played five more matches in the tournament but failed to win any. They haven't played an ODI since.

1981 A mixed day for Dennis Lillee. In the third Test against India, he overtook Richie Benaud's then-record wickets aggregate for Australia (248) but also got involved in an unseemly spat with Sunil Gavaskar, which briefly threatened to bring the Test to a premature end. The match did end early on day five after Australia astonishingly collapsed for 83 against an injury-hit Indian attack. Kapil Dev, who didn't bowl on the fourth evening due to a strained thigh muscle, took 5 for 28 the next morning.

1992 With England 2-0 up, the third and final Test - which was also Ian Botham's 100th - against New Zealand in Wellington was drifting away on the final afternoon, and pretty much everyone had switched off. Not David Lawrence, who was bowling for his country and continued to bustle in at full pelt. But in his third over he fractured his left kneecap as he was about to bowl and fell horribly, his chilling cries of pain echoing around the stadium. Spectators said the sound of his knee splitting was like a pistol shot. His Test career was over, his first-class career as good as, though he did attempt a comeback with Gloucestershire in 1997. As Lawrence was being stretchered off, the England manager, Micky Stewart, and Jack Russell got involved in a scuffle with a local cameraman.

1912 Jack Hobbs (178) and Wilfred Rhodes (179) put on 323 for the first wicket against Australia in Melbourne, setting up an innings victory that saw England regain the Ashes. Hobbs' record as an opener is legendary; Rhodes, one of the game's greatest allrounders, began his Test career in 1899, batting No. 11, and ended it in 1930, batting No. 10.

1997 A rare overseas Test win for England - their first in ten games in fact. Darren Gough and the recalled Andy Caddick inspired a rout of New Zealand in Wellington by sharing 15 wickets, while Graham Thorpe made his second consecutive century to nail England's advantage. New Zealand never recovered from a truncated first day, which they closed on 56 for 6.

1962 An old-fashioned chunky biffer is born. West Indian Clayton Lambert's five-Test career came in two distinct parts. First he made his debut in the middle order at The Oval in 1991, and it was his preposterous heave off Phil Tufnell's first ball of the third day that kick-started a dramatic West Indian collapse. He was then recalled at the age of 36, again against England, in 1997-98, when he made a hundred. But the following winter Messrs Pollock and Donald found him out, even though Lambert had plenty of experience of playing in South Africa with Northern Transvaal. This time it was terminal - in a sense, though he later appeared for the USA.

1941 Birth of the first Englishman to score a Test hundred on debut at Lord's. John Hampshire rescued England from 61 for 5 with 107 against West Indies in 1969, but it was the only hundred he made in eight Tests. A largely attacking batsman, he staged an infamous go-slow at Northampton - which cost Yorkshire a bonus point - as a protest against what he perceived to be selfish batting by one Geoff Boycott. Hampshire later became a Test umpire.

1975 England captain Mike Denness ended a wretched Ashes series on a personal high, plundering 188 in the sixth Test, in Melbourne, off an Australian attack weakened by the absence of the injured Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson. It remains the highest score by any visiting captain in a Test in Australia and helped England to an innings victory. It wasn't enough to save Denness, however, and within three Tests he had been sacked. Australia won the series 4-1.

1978 A Wellington paint-drying marathon. After surviving a strong caught-behind appeal off the first ball of his first Test, John Wright batted 517 minutes and 349 balls for 74 runs in the match. But it was all in a good cause: he was New Zealand's top scorer, and the only man apart from Geoff Boycott to make a fifty in their first Test win over England, in their 48th Test. It still needed England to falter in pursuit of a mighty fourth-innings target of 137. In a match played in gale-force winds, Richard Hadlee (6 for 26) blew them away for just 64.

1847 A headline writer's dream is born. Albert "Monkey" Hornby is one of only three men in Test history with a bowling average of 0. He took 1 for 0 off seven overs in his career, which spanned three Tests and five years. Hornby was a batsman by trade, but he failed to reach double figures in six innings. Clearly Monkey wasn't the solution to England's batting puzzle.

1972 Birth of Michael Kasprowicz, the Aussie seamer who might have played many more Tests but for the success of Glenn McGrath and friends. Kasprowicz had success in England in 1997 but was ineffective when recalled in India in 2000-01, and seemed destined to be a nearly man. But he grasped his chance when picked to tour Sri Lanka in 2003-04 and cemented his place in the side with good performances in the return series and in India. In 2004 he took 47 wickets in 13 Tests at 23.74. In 2005 his was the fateful last wicket in the thrilling Edgbaston Ashes Test. Kasprowicz retired in 2008, finishing with 113 wickets from 38 Tests.

1982 Ireland medium-pacer John Mooney, born today, missed out on playing in Ireland's famous win over Pakistan in the 2007 World Cup but took four wickets in the bigger victory, over England in the 2011 tournament. Then in December 2013, his ten-wicket match haul against Afghanistan gave Ireland their fourth Intercontinental Cup title. Two months later he left a tour of West Indies due to a stress-related illness. He called it quits in 2015.

1979 A captain's knock from Graham Yallop, who made 121 out of Australia's total of 198 against England in Sydney today. Nobody else passed 16, and Yallop's score accounted for 61.11% of his side's innings. It didn't do much for the result, though: England won by nine wickets to seal a 5-1 series victory. Yallop had only one more match as captain before giving way to Kim Hughes.

A corpse in pads, a drugs scandal, and the debut of West Indies' greatest captain

Bill Lawry (far right) with the 1968 Australian Ashes team in London

1937 Birth of one of Australia's greatest openers. At the crease, Bill Lawry was the antithesis of the boisterous, excitable commentator we know today. Lawry the opener was blessed with a dead bat and eternal concentration (he twice carried his bat in a Test). He burst onto the scene with 420 runs in England in 1961, including an extremely brave 130 on a dodgy, ridgy pitch at Lord's. He later became captain but paid the price for being pulverised by South Africa in 1969-70 and surrendering the Ashes a year later. Aged only 33, he was dropped for good. Lawry soon became a fixture in the commentary box, though, renowned for his nasal exclamations and knockabout banter with Tony Greig.

2003 First the bookies, then the nurses... and finally the drugs. On the very morning that Australia launched their successful defence of the World Cup, Shane Warne was flying back home in disgrace, after completing a very unsavoury hat-trick of scandals. Warne, who had made a stunningly rapid recovery from a dislocated shoulder, had tested positive for diuretics, agents that promote rapid weight loss but can also be used to disguise the use of steroids. He protested that he had taken the tablets on the advice of his mother, who wanted him to look good in front of the cameras. That excuse didn't wash with the Australian board, however, which banned him from all cricket for a year.

1948 The debut of West Indies' finest captain. It took Frank Worrell 13 years and 37 Tests to get to the summit, and in the meantime he contented himself with being a top-class batsman. He started against England in Trinidad, with 125 runs for once out, but there was no debut century: Worrell was agonisingly caught behind for 97 in the first innings, and made 28 not out in the second. He soon made up for it, though, with 131 in the next Test. In fact, after two Tests his average was 256, and after seven it was 104. His average never dropped below 50... until his last Test series, when a poor run (68 runs in seven innings) finally caught up with him and left him stranded on 49.48.

1948 On the same day, in the same Test, makeshift England opener and wicketkeeper Billy Griffith ran out the regular opener, Jack Robertson, and to make up for it, cracked 140 on debut before he was lbw to... Worrell. Griffith should have stayed at the top of the order. He made 4 in the second innings, and then after moving back to his customary station at No. 10 or 8, added scores of 8, 5 and 0.

1851 The first first-class match in Australia, between Tasmania and Victoria at Launceston Racecourse ground, got underway in front of about 1000 spectators. Tasmania won by three wickets.

1938 Birth of Bev Congdon, whose batting average (32.22) may not have been much to shout about but who was a key player for New Zealand in the 1960s and '70s. He was a sound No. 3, a shrewd captain, and a good enough medium-pacer to pick up a Test five-for. Congdon had a taste for big hundreds - three of his seven in Tests totalled 166 or more (including 176 and 175 back to back in England in 1973) - though none of the seven were match-winners. In fact, of Congdon's 61 Tests, New Zealand won only seven.

2003 The day a Test nation lost to the team playing in its first World Cup match for 24 years. This wasn't quite the upset it appears on paper, however. The teams in question were Bangladesh, with three wins in 63 matches (and none since their dubious victory over Pakistan in 1999), and Canada, whose purposeful batting carried them to a commendable total of 180. Bangladesh then collapsed for 120 under the Pietermaritzburg floodlights, with Canada's dreadlocked seamer Austin Codrington taking 5 for 27.

1970 Birth of either one of the best uncapped batsmen in England or a clown, depending on your viewpoint. After a chancy 37 on Ali Brown's one-day debut, against India at The Oval in 1996, the Times reported that had Brown "appeared on a one-wheeled bike, wearing a silly hat and a red nose, and thrown custard pies at the umpires, he would scarcely have struck a more ridiculous figure than he did yesterday". Brown did make a century four days later, but his ODI career was a stop-start affair, although he smashed a 31-ball 50 against South Africa in 1998 and played some extraordinary one-day innings for Surrey, including a world-record 268 against Glamorgan in 2002.

1987 England wrapped up a fine winter's work by taking the World Series with victory over Australia in the second final, in Sydney. Coupled with regaining the Ashes and winning the short B&H Perth Challenge, things could not have gone any better for England. Chris Broad made 53 here in a tense eight-run win, and was then named International Cricketer of the Year. All was well with the world, and if you'd told the assembled throng that the only victories England would get in Australia for the next 15 years would be in dead rubbers, few would have believed you.

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1949 A cricketing gentleman is born. India's Gundappa Viswanath was as renowned for his sportsmanship - he cost India the Golden Jubilee Test when he recalled Bob Taylor - as he was for his lightning wrists and pure, impish strokeplay. From 91 Tests he made over 6000 runs at an average of 41. And his runs were usually influential: he averaged 53 against West Indies, and 51 in Tests India didn't lose, as against 26 in those they did.

1961 A day for young centurions. Today Mushtaq Mohammad, aged 17 years 82 days, made his first Test hundred, against India in Delhi. It was a Test record until Bangladesh's Mohammad Ashraful took a century - on debut - off Sri Lanka at the age of 17 years and 63 days. Before that, the nearest anyone got to breaking Mushtaq's record was...

1990 ... 16-year-old Sachin Tendulkar, who came within 12 runs of becoming the youngest person to make a Test hundred when he was out to New Zealand's Danny Morrison in the second Test, in Napier. This Test match was heavily rain-affected, although there was also time for John Wright to bite the hand that would later feed him - he made his second hundred of the series.

2003 A bad day for South Africa, the World Cup hosts, in Paarl, where Percy Sonn - at the time the UCBSA president - got so drunk while watching India thrash Netherlands that he infamously "fell out of his pants". One reporter noted that Sonn, who went on to become president of the ICC, told onlookers: "Brother I am so ****ing drunk I don't know where the **** I am."

1857 Among Englishmen with 100 Test wickets, only the deadly duo of George Lohmann and Sydney Barnes have a lower average than Bobby Peel, who was born today. Peel was a devilishly accurate left-arm spinner, whose 101 wickets came at a cost of just 16.97 each. And he conceded only 1.97 runs per over. At Old Trafford in 1888 he took advantage of a vicious sticky dog to take 11 for 68 and bowl England to an Ashes-clinching innings victory. He died in his native Leeds in 1941.

1932 A day to forget for South Africa, who were bowled out for 36 in 23.2 overs by Australia in Melbourne. Bert Ironmonger led the way with 5 for 6, and although Australia were themselves bowled out for 153, Ironmonger took 6 for 18 as South Africa were skittled for 45 second time round, losing the series 0-5.

1871 The birth of all-round sportsman Charlie McGahey. He played football for Sheffield United, Tottenham and Arsenal, was a hard-hitting batsman for Essex - on one occasion he drove the ball back so hard that he broke his partner's arm - and played twice for England in Australia in 1901-02.

1964 The end of Richie Benaud's radiant 63-Test career, in Sydney. He bowed out with 14 runs and four wickets as Australia drew with South Africa, ensuring that the series would finish 1-1. Benaud finished with 2201 runs, 248 wickets, and the proud record of having never captained Australia in a series defeat.

1964 Birth of the least celebrated member of the West Indian hit squad of 1984. The gangling, awkward Milton Small was a rarity among 1980s West Indies quicks, in that he had the description "fast-medium" rather than "fast" against his name. His last Test was at Lord's on that tour, when he was somehow given the new ball ahead of Malcolm Marshall.

1994 Breezy fare in Auckland, where a first Test that lasted only 199.2 overs came to an end. Pakistan won it by five wickets, thanks chiefly to nine wickets from Wasim Akram and a blistering 78 from Aamer Sohail, one of only two fifties in the match. There was a carefree air about proceedings from start to finish: the top partnership of the match was 75, from only 48 balls, by Andrew Jones and Mark Greatbatch on the first day.

1880William Shalders, born today, played 12 Tests for South Africa and toured England in 1904 and 1907. He wasn't one of the stars of the famous South African side in 1907 but performed consistently on the tour. He scored 108 against Hampshire, and came out sixth on the list for the whole tour, getting 747 runs in 22 matches.

1941 New Zealand's Ross Morgan, born today, was a dependable batsman who favoured clipping the ball through midwicket. He was also an offspinner with a memorable skipping and hopping approach. He made 66 on debut against Pakistan in Auckland in 1964-65, and followed with a career-best 97 in Christchurch. A good tour of India later that season followed but thereafter he struggled - his next 22 Test innings produced only 287 runs. His final series was in West Indies in 1971-72, where in three Tests he scored eight runs and took one wicket.

Eddie Paynter score 24 of his 83 at the Gabba in 1933 in between hospital visits

1933 Boy's Own stuff in Brisbane, where Eddie Paynter left his hospital bed to come to England's aid as they struggled in the fourth Test of the Bodyline series. Laid low by acute tonsillitis, Paynter heard of England's plight on the radio, and with the Ashes in the balance, grabbed a taxi and arrived at the ground in his pyjamas. He stopped the rot, finishing the day on 24 not out, returned to hospital, and then extended his innings to 83 the following morning.

2009 In a situation reminiscent of the Sabina Park farce in 1997-98, the second Test between West Indies and England at the new Sir Vivian Richards Stadium was abandoned after just ten balls. The outfield was sandy and there was a lack of firmness underfoot while bowling. Jerome Taylor failed to deliver his first ball at the first attempt, and then completely lost his run-up. Fidel Edwards was frustrated with the sand being kicked up as he ran in. International cricket was suspended at the stadium for 12 mo

1980 A famous victory for New Zealand, in a cranky match that left a bad taste in the mouth. Their last pair of Gary Troup and Stephen Boock scrambled a leg-bye to give them a one-wicket victory over West Indies in Dunedin - it ultimately gave them the series too, the last West Indies lost for 15 years - after it had looked all over with the Kiwis at 54 for 7, chasing 104. But it's the other stuff that the match is remembered for: Michael Holding infamously hoofed the stumps down when a caught-behind appeal was turned down (his apoplexy was partly the result of an earlier incident when he clipped Lance Cairns' off stump without the bails being dislodged), and there was a series of West Indian complaints about the umpiring. With the exception of Desmond Haynes, who was last out in both innings for 55 and 105, and would have been the first West Indian to be on the field throughout a Test had he fielded in the second innings, none of the team attended the presentations.

1995 A Wellington massacre. West Indies, and Courtney Walsh in particular, pummelled New Zealand by an innings and 322 runs in the second Test, the fourth-biggest victory in Test history at that time. After West Indies smashed 660 for 5 - including an 88-ball hundred from Junior Murray - Walsh got blood out of a fairly lifeless stone to take 13 wickets for just 55 runs.

1965 A blistering 137 from Graeme Pollock against England in Port Elizabeth made him only the second man after George Headley to hit three Test hundreds before the age of 21. Pollock added 77 not out in the second innings to boost his average to 53.58 from 11 Tests. Manhood made him an even better player - in 12 further Tests he averaged 67.

2000 When South Africa were 21 for 5 in the Standard Bank one-day final against England in Johannesburg today, it seemed there could only be one winner. It wasn't England. The soon-to-be-disgraced Hansie Cronje led South Africa back from the brink, and even though they mustered only 149, it was more than enough. Only extras passed 20 for England.

1948 Poor Andy Ganteaume. The West Indian opener hit 112 against England in Trinidad today, in what turned out to be his only Test innings. However freakish, an über-Bradman average of 112 is some consolation. In this match, a high-scoring draw, all four openers - Ganteaume, George Carew, Jack Robertson and Billy Griffith - got hundreds.

1950 Birth of a bright spark. Australian quick bowler Len Pascoe, of Macedonian descent and born Len Durtanovich, was blessed with the ability to bowl fast and straight, and took a flurry of three- and four-fors in 14 Tests. His only five-wicket haul came at Lord's in the Centenary Test of 1980, where his 5 for 59 included four lbws. But injury forced him to miss the England tour a year later, and despite a perfectly acceptable record of 64 wickets at 26, his last Test came against West Indies in Adelaide in 1981-82.

1912 England regained the Ashes with an innings victory in the fourth Test, in Melbourne. Johnny Douglas took 5 for 46 after Jack Hobbs (178) and Wilfred Rhodes (179) provided the platform with a 323-run opening stand.

1842 The birth of the controversial and colourful Ted Pooley, one of the best wicketkeepers of his era but a man who attracted trouble and some. He was suspended by Surrey in 1873 over allegations that he didn't try in a match, and missed the first Test of all, in 1877, as he was under arrest in New Zealand after an unsuccessful betting scam during a tour match. He died broken and bankrupt in a London workhouse in 1907.

2014 Over 500 players went under the hammer in the IPL's biggest auction, in Bangalore. There were five million-dollar buys - Yuvraj Singh, Dinesh Karthik, Kevin Pietersen, Mitchell Johnson and Glenn Maxwell - but the overall mood was less dramatic than in previous auctions, with the franchises looking at team-building over branding. Seventy players were bought for a total of Rs 212.35 crores (approx. US$35 million).

George Lohmann took 15 for 45 as South Africa were shown no love on Valentine's Day

1896 Not a day to spark celebrations in South Africa. Today they were bowled out for 30 by England in Port Elizabeth, their lowest score in Tests and the second lowest by anyone. The deadly George Lohmann did the damage: having found his range with 7 for 38 in the first innings, he took a remarkable 8 for 7 here. Fittingly, he rounded off the match - which was over inside two days and 200 (five-ball) overs - with a hat-trick.

1931 A St Valentine's Day massacre. West Indies went down in two days to Australia in the fourth Test, in Melbourne, bowled out for 99 and 107, with Bert Ironmonger taking 11 wickets. There was also a luscious 152 from Don Bradman to add to the 223 he made in the previous Test.

2003 Muttiah Muralitharan may be Sri Lanka's most potent bowling weapon ever, but when it came to collecting one-day records, Chaminda Vaas was peerless. Already the holder of the best analysis in one-day cricket, 8 for 19 against Zimbabwe, on this day he became the first bowler to take a hat-trick with the first three balls of a match, against the hapless Bangladeshis in Pietermaritzburg. He added a fourth in the same over, en route to figures of 6 for 25, and Sri Lanka won by ten wickets with almost 30 overs to spare.

1968 The end of a Jamaican cracker. England were in control for most of the second Test, but after they made West Indies follow on for the second Test in a row, a century from Garry Sobers (who in the first innings went first ball to John Snow, for the second consecutive innings in which Snow had bowled to him) left England needing 159 to win on a tricky surface. Sobers and Lance Gibbs almost sent them to a sensational defeat, but they hung on at 68 for 8. All this on the sixth day of the match - an extra 75 minutes were played because of a bottle-throwing riot on the fourth day, precipitated by the dismissal of Basil Butcher.

1985 Eighteen-year-old Wasim Akram won a few battles with a ten-for in only his second Test, but New Zealand won the war with a tense two-wicket win in Dunedin today. It was even tighter than the scoreline suggests: Lance Cairns was hospitalised with a suspected fractured skull, and New Zealand were effectively nine down. Somehow Ewen Chatfield (Test average: 8) managed to stay with Jeremy Coney for 104 minutes - his longest first-class innings - while 50 runs were added. It was the difference between a 2-0 New Zealand win and a 1-1 draw.

1968 On Valentine's Day, a charmer and a cad was born. Described by Vic Marks as "an enigma without a variation", Chris Lewis had probably the greatest natural talent of all England's post-Botham wannabes, and at his best he could charm the pants off any cricket lover. But too often he'd leave his admirers in the lurch with a nothing performance when it mattered: remember that ridiculous sojourn down the track to Tim May at Lord's in 1993? Or the time he shaved his head in the Caribbean and got sunstroke? Or the puncture at The Oval in 1996 that led to him being dropped for the final time? He scored a Test hundred - made in a match that was long since lost - and did help win three Tests with the ball, but Lewis could have done so much more. He drifted out of cricket at the end of 2000, and in late 2008 was found guilty of smuggling cocaine into England and was sentenced to 13 years in prison.

1996 The beginning of the sixth World Cup. They say you shouldn't peak too early in a big tournament, and England followed that maxim a bit too keenly, losing an eminently winnable match against New Zealand by 11 runs. The key moment came when Graeme Hick, who played beautifully for 85, was run out after a mix-up between his runner, Mike Atherton, and Neil Fairbrother.

1982 Sri Lanka's first victory as a Test-playing nation. Okay, it came in a one-dayer and was largely a product of English incompetence, but they all count. Chasing 216 to win, England were cruising at 203 for 5 when the last five wickets went down for nine runs, four of them run-outs. Such a show of blind panic was pretty embarrassing for England, who did not lose to Sri Lanka in a one-dayer again for 11 years.

1950 Twin hundreds for Australian opener Jack Moroney in Johannesburg, where six weeks earlier he had begun his Test career by being run out for 0. Curiously this was the only match of his seven-Test career that Australia didn't win. When they didn't win, he averaged 219; when they did, the figure was just 16.

1995 A run-feast in the Shell Trophy match in Christchurch. Canterbury (496 and 476 for 2 dec) lost to Wellington (498 for 2 dec and 475 for 4) by six wickets in a match that produced an average of 108 runs per wicket. There were seven centuries - not a great surprise when you consider that the two teams contained a nap hand of international batsmen and allrounders. Messrs Hartland, Stead, Harris, Latham, Cairns, Astle, McMillan, Priest, Germon, Twose, Crowe and Larsen all played in this match; between them they accounted for five of those hundreds.

2016 While the senior West Indies side was embroiled in yet another payment dispute with the board, this time putting their participation in the World T20 in doubt, their Under-19 team brought respite to beleaguered fans by winning the junior World Cup in Mirpur. Fast bowlers Alzarri Joseph and Ryan John took three wickets each to bowl out India for 145 and then batsman Keacy Carty led the chase with a patient 52 not out. It was India's first Youth ODI defeat since their quarter-final exit from the 2014 World Cup.

Alan Davidson hooks Wes Hall on a nail-biting final day in Melbourne in 1961

1961 The end of probably the greatest Test series of all. Australia needed 258 to beat West Indies in the fifth Test, at the MCG, and take the series 2-1. At 154 for 2, it looked a formality, but Frank Worrell and Alf Valentine dragged West Indies back into it, and at 236 for 6 it was anyone's game. But the Aussies had "Slasher" Mackay coming in at No. 8, and with two wickets left, he and Johnny Martin scrambled the winning leg-bye just before the close of the penultimate day. A record crowd of 90,800 watched the second day of the Test. After such a mesmeric series, West Indies were bid goodbye in fitting fashion: a new trophy, for which the countries still compete, was established, bearing Worrell's name; and the whole team was given a tickertape farewell parade through Melbourne.

1956 Birth of Desmond Haynes, who with Gordon Greenidge formed one of the greatest opening partnerships of all time. They put together 16 century stands in Tests, with Haynes usually playing the sedate straight man to Greenidge's slayer. Haynes was also a superb one-day batsman, a master at pacing an innings (11 of his 17 ODI centuries were unbeaten, and 16 of them came in a winning cause), and no West Indian had scored more than his 8648 ODI runs till Brian Lara overtook the mark. Haynes made three fifties in his first three Test innings, and also three hundreds in a row against England and Pakistan in 1990. He was a generally happy and popular character, but in his first Test as captain, covering for the injured Viv Richards, in Trinidad in 1990, he had a shouting match with Alec Stewart and denied England victory with blatant time-wasting tactics

1932 A one-day Test may be a contradiction, but - in real terms at least - that's what happened at the MCG on this day. Australia hammered South Africa by an innings, and the match (which because of bad weather was spread over three days) lasted only five hours, 53 minutes. The South Africans were routed for just 36 and 45, with left-arm spinner Bert Ironmonger taking 5 for 6 and 6 for 18: his 11 for 24 is the cheapest ten-wicket haul in a Test. Clarrie Grimmett couldn't even get a bowl. In all, there were 234 runs scored, the lowest aggregate in Test history for a complete match.

1921 One of the most remarkable bowling performances in Tests. Australia's Arthur Mailey took 9 for 121 as England slumped to an eight-wicket defeat in the fourth Test, in Melbourne. Mailey could have had the perfect ten, but a catch off the one batsman to evade him - Patsy Hendren - was dropped.

1998 A Test century from a No. 10. Pat Symcox became only the third man to achieve the feat, and the first for 96 years, when he whacked 108 against Pakistan in Johannesburg on this day. He also added a Test-record 195 for the ninth wicket with Mark Boucher.

2014 After England, it was South Africa's turn to get blown away by the Mitchell Johnson menace. He took 12 for 127 - Australia's second-best match figures in South Africa - in the first Test, in Cape Town, to bowl them out for 206 and 200. Shaun Marsh, replacing the injured Shane Watson, made 148 on his comeback, and Steven Smith, also continuing his fine form from the Ashes, made 100. South Africa were inept not only against Johnson's pace but also in the field, giving David Warner four lives in his double-century stand with debutant Alex Doolan (89) in the second innings.

1965 Birth of the niggardly South African seamer Craig Matthews, part of the fearsome foursome (Allan Donald, Fanie de Villiers and Brian McMillan were the others) who demolished England for 99 at Lord's in 1994. Matthews took 3 for 25 in that innings, and earlier in the match flashed an initiative-seizing 41 off 36 balls. His record was a good one - 52 wickets at 28 - but he played his last Test at the age of 30, against England in 1995-96. His final figures - 1 for 29 off 19 overs - summed up his thriftiness.

1993 Another thrashing for England on their horror tour of the subcontinent. They went down to India by an innings and 22 runs in the second Test, in Madras. Their captain, Graham Gooch, pulled out after eating a dodgy prawn curry, and England were never in the game once India piled up 560 for 6 declared. As in the first Test, there were 17 wickets for India's three spinners, Anil Kumble, Venkatapathy Raju and Rajesh Chauhan. There was also a first, and only, Test hundred for Chris Lewis - on his 25th birthday - but that was about all England had to cheer.

1978 And moving further south, Geoff Boycott's second match in charge of England (Mike Brearley was at home nursing a broken arm) ended in their first-ever defeat by New Zealand, bowled out for 64 chasing 137.

1992Ian Botham's highest one-day score. Thrust up the order for the pre-World Cup one-day series in New Zealand, Botham belted a strapping 79 off 73 balls in the third match, in Christchurch, as England put the seal on an impressive clean sweep. Botham was one of the first pinch-hitters, and England carried their plan into the World Cup, although he only made one fifty. Typically enough, it was against Australia.

1979Hamish Marshall, who was born today, made his Test debut in 2000 in a rain-disrupted match in Johannesburg, but his second chance only came four years later. He made his one-day debut in between. His maiden Test hundred came against Australia in Christchurch in March 2005. Later in that series, in Auckland, his twin brother James made his Test debut, marking the first time identical twins have featured together in a Test XI. A month later, Hamish scored another hundred, against Sri Lanka in Napier. However, he struggled to keep his place in the ODI side, and though he got three games in the World Cup, he refused a national contract in 2007 to play domestic cricket in England as a local player. James' international career was even briefer, but he, too, had a robust domestic career.

1954 A whispering birth. No bowler in history has run up with quite the lithe, rhythmic grace of Michael Holding - hence his nickname, "Whispering Death". Peculiarly, Holding's 60 Tests came against only four countries - England, Australia, India and New Zealand - but he was the sort of classy practitioner who could produce anywhere: 11 of his 13 five-fors came overseas, including two on an Oval featherbed in 1976, when he tore England apart with a magnificent performance (8 for 92 and 6 for 57). And there was that over to Geoff Boycott in Barbados in 1980-81, when Holding softened him up with the first five balls and sent the off stump flying with the sixth. In Wisden Cricket Monthly, Boycott's team-mate Chris Old was described as "having the look of a man who had seen a monster". Holding also whacked six Test fifties, four of them off England. He is now a high-class TV commentator, with a voice to make listeners drool.

1933 The end that justified the means. England's Bodyline tactics weren't popular, but they brought the Ashes back today with a six-wicket victory that gave them an unassailable 3-1 lead with one to play. Eddie Paynter was the hero, overcoming tonsillitis to make a decisive 83 in the first innings. The relative failure of Don Bradman - who made 76 and 24 and was out to Harold Larwood in both innings - was also crucial to England's success. England's celebrations were muted, however, by the news that Australian batsman Archie Jackson, aged just 23, had died of tuberculosis

1972 The beginning of the most successful batting debut of all. Lawrence Rowe, playing in Kingston, the town of his birth, became the only man to make a double-century and a century on Test debut. At the end of this first day he was not out on 94, which he extended on the second day to a mighty 214. For good measure, Rowe cracked an unbeaten 100 in the second innings. But the match was drawn, thanks mainly to Glenn Turner, who carried his bat in New Zealand's first innings for a brilliant 223 - the highest score by a batsman carrying his bat. Interestingly, Turner and Rowe had both made a double-hundred in their last first-class match before this Test.

1966 A meticulous 307 from Bob Cowper as the final Test between Australia and England at the MCG drifted towards a draw. With the series squared at 1-1, Australia retained the Ashes. Cowper batted 727 minutes in all - at the time it was the longest first-class innings in Australia - and was also the first triple-hundred in a Test in Australia, a feat that even eluded Don Bradman. This was also the last of wicketkeeper Wally Grout's 51 Tests - he ended with 187 dismissals.

1978Wasim Jaffer, born today, scored a triple-century in his second first-class match and much was expected of him when he made his Test debut in February 2000, but Allan Donald and Shaun Pollock proved too hot to handle. In 2006 he scored his maiden Test hundred - against England - in Nagpur and followed with a double in the West Indies. But Gautam Gambhir's success as a Test opener meant Jaffer was forced to return to domestic cricket, where he continued to dominate bowling attacks. He also captained Mumbai to Ranji titles in 2008-09 and 2009-10, as well as overseeing West Zone's 16th Duleep Trophy success in early 2010. The year after that he became the highest run-getter in the Ranji Trophy, going past team-mate Amol Muzumdar's 8237 runs, at the Wankhede, his home ground.

1996 Plenty of candy for Gary Kirsten, who took 188 off the cricketing babies of the United Arab Emirates in the second match of the 1996 World Cup in Rawalpindi. It was the highest score in the World Cup for nearly 20 years, and he fell just one short of the record at that time, Viv Richards' 189 against England in 1984. South Africa won at a canter, predictably, but only after Allan Donald had felled the UAE's captain, Sultan Zarawani, with a blow to the head first-ball. Zarawani had only himself to blame: you don't come out to face Donald wearing a sunhat and expect a half-volley.

1902 Birth of the South African allrounder Cyril Vincent, a useful batsman and a fine, accurate left-arm spinner. In 25 Tests he hit a couple of fifties, both against England, although he did his best work with the ball. He took three five-fors, all against England, all in drawn Tests. Vincent had a very good strike rate for a spinner (a wicket every 69 balls) and a distinguished rabbit: Wally Hammond, whom he dismissed 10 times. He died in Durban in 1968.

1973 West Indies took the field in a Test without Garry Sobers for the first time in 18 years today. This first Test against Australia in Jamaica, which was drawn, was notable for a brutal 142 from Keith Stackpole. In particular he got stuck into quick bowler Uton Dowe, leading to some of the crowd erecting banners announcing an 11th commandment: "Dowe Shall Not Bowl."

1994 The start of England's tour of West Indies, and a shock victory. Nobody gave England much hope in the first one-day international in Barbados, but Mike Atherton - in his first one-dayer for nearly three years - anchored them to 202 for 5 before Devon Malcolm (3 for 41), Chris Lewis (3 for 18) and Alan Igglesden (2 for 12) bowled them to a famous win.

1904 Birth of the man who invented the chinaman. Trinidadian Ellis "Puss" Achong was a slow left-armer of Chinese extraction, from whom the expression for the left-arm spinner's wrong 'un is believed to originate. The story goes that, in the second Test at Old Trafford in 1933, he had Walter Robins stumped. Robins left the crease cursing, "Fancy being out to a bloody Chinaman," to which Learie Constantine replied: "Do you mean the bowler or the ball?" Achong played six Tests without much success, although he did find the Lancashire Leagues more conducive to his art: he took over 1000 wickets there.

1886 A double international is born. Surrey's Andy Ducat played one Test in 1921 - the call came as such a surprise that he thought the telegram was a wind-up - and six matches for England's football team in the old half-back position. He also led Aston Villa to victory in the 1920 FA Cup final. Ducat died at Lord's in 1942, while batting in a match between Home Guard units.

1984 An acrobatic fielder and flamboyant wicketkeeper-batsman is born. AB de Villiers was destined to be a sportsman - such was his natural talent that tennis, golf, cricket or rugby could have been his calling. Cricket won, and by the age of 21 he was being hailed as "the future" in South Africa. After a bright start to his career in 2004, there were a couple of years when he sparkled only intermittently but 2008 turned out to be memorable. He made a double-hundred against India, and his match-winning knocks of 174 at Headingley and 106 not out in Perth paved the way for historic Test series wins in England and Australia. In 2010, de Villiers broke Gary Kirsten's record for the highest South African score, making an unbeaten 278 against Pakistan. The year after, he was named the limited-overs captain. Early in 2015, he broke the world record for the fastest ODI ton, scored off 31 balls, and the fastest one-day 150, off 64 balls, cementing his reputation as perhaps the most versatile and destructive batsman of the 2010s. In January 2016, de Villiers was handed the Test captaincy, but his reign was short-lived - injury kept him out of action for the second half of the year and Faf du Plessis' excellent job as stand-in meant the mantle was passed on to him.

1982 A big day in Sri Lanka. Their life as the eighth Test-playing nation began today in Colombo with a one-off Test against England. Sri Lanka made a good fist of it too: England only managed a first-innings lead of 5, and with Sri Lanka 167 for 3 in their second innings, things were getting interesting. Then John Emburey broke the habit of a lifetime and took a match-winning five-for, Sri Lanka lost seven wickets for eight runs, and England breezed home by seven wickets. An 18-year-old student called Arjuna Ranatunga was in the Sri Lankan side, and made 54 in the first innings.

1916 Birth of the greatest wicketkeeper of all time, according to the greatest cricketer of all time. Australian Don Tallon was given the gloves in Don Bradman's slightly woolly XI, but disputes over Tallon's presence had nothing to do with his ability behind the stumps. In an age when keepers kept and batsmen scored runs, Tallon was able to get away with a batting average of 17 because he was so precise and deft a keeper. His attacking style with the bat occasionally came off too, most notably when he hammered a run-a-minute 92 against England in Melbourne in 1946-47. He died in his native Queensland in 1984.

2005 You wouldn't have forecast million-dollar leagues and biennial world championships based on the first T20 international, played today between Australia and New Zealand in Auckland. The format felt ultra-modern but the New Zealand players went retro with beige uniforms and fake moustaches and wigs. Glenn McGrath even pretended to bowl the final ball underarm, in a reference to the Trevor Chappell incident of 1981. And though Australia's victory owed to a very T20 innings by Ricky Ponting - 98 off 55 balls - and a great swing bowling spell by Michael Kasprowicz, the gimmicky tone was hard to ignore. "I think it is difficult to play seriously," Ponting said after the game. "If it does become an international game then I'm sure the novelty won't be there all the time."

1883 The start of a one-off Test between Australia and England in Sydney, played on four separate wickets - one for each innings. The experiment was agreed as the game was a last-minute addition to the schedule because the best-of-three series had already been won by England. Australia triumphed by four wickets.

1971 At the end of the longest rubber in Test history, England won the seventh Test against Australia, in Sydney by 62 runs to take the series 2-0 and regain the Ashes. This despite, quite astonishingly, not a single lbw decision being given against an Australian batsman in the whole series. This match - Ian Chappell's first as captain, after Bill Lawry was dumped - was notable for crowd trouble on the second day, after John Snow felled Terry Jenner, which led to Ray Illingworth taking his team off the field.

1936 Another Australian wicketkeeper is born. Barry Jarman started off as understudy to Wally Grout before playing 19 Tests between 1959 and 1969. Nimble despite his 13 stone-plus frame, he was a very good keeper and a dangerous lower-order hitter who made two Test fifties. Jarman later became a Test umpire and an ICC referee, and was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in 1997.

1998 The second of the back-to-back Trinidad Tests produced another three-wicket win, and another instance of the fourth innings being the highest of the match. But this time it was England who were celebrating, after Mark Butcher and Dean Headley got them drip by drip to their target of 225 in a tense finish. Another heroic performance from Angus Fraser, who took nine wickets to go with his 11 in the first match, was complemented by a brilliant display from Alec Stewart (44 and 83 in a match where there was only one other fifty).

1973 New Zealand opener Rodney Redmond made a blistering two-hour 107 on this day in his first Test innings, against Pakistan in Auckland. He added 56 in the second innings to complete an outstanding debut, but the dream soon turned into a nightmare: Redmond never played a Test again. He toured England the following summer but had problems with his new contact lenses - and the one-eyed Kiwi selectors, who were influenced by his poor early-tour form and didn't pick him for the Tests.

1976 New Zealand's first innings victory. Those great travellers India were the victims in Wellington, with Richard Hadlee taking 4 for 35 and then 7 for 23 as India were bowled out for 220 and 81. This was also the last Test of Ken Wadsworth's career: he extended the New Zealand wicketkeeping record for dismissals to 96, but six months later he died of cancer aged only 29.

1996 Aged 47 years and 240 days, Nolan Clarke became the oldest player to make his ODI debut when he appeared against New Zealand in Vadodara during Netherlands' first World Cup game. Clarke, opening the batting, scored 14.

1882 The first Test at the SCG. Australia won by five wickets to take a 1-0 lead after offspinner Joey Palmer took 11 wickets (7 for 68 and 4 for 97) opening the bowling along with left-arm spinner Edwin Evans. England's George Ulyett was the top scorer with 67. His opening partner Dick Barlow was the only other batsman to get a half-century.

1962 A polished right-hand batsman and sound wicketkeeper, Tony Blain, born today, suffered from being an almost permanent understudy, first to Ian Smith and then Adam Parore. He made his Test debut against England at The Oval in 1986 and scored a battling 37 but spilt a swirling skier from Ian Botham. He next played twice against India in 1988-89, and had a final eight-match run in the side in 1992 with home and away matches against Australia and a tour to Pakistan. He also played 38 ODIs. After retiring, Blain did some coaching and commentary work.

1981Ryan Hinds, who was born today, captained the West Indian side in the 2000 Under-19 World Cup. And while Desmond Haynes said his batting technique was the best in the Caribbean, Hinds made news with his left-arm spin, taking 15 wickets against the Leeward Islands in the 2001 Busta Cup, including 9 for 68 in the first innings. He scored a half-century on Test debut in 2002 but failed to be consistent after that. He waited three years for a recall - against Sri Lanka in 2008 - and nearly took a break from the game. In 2009 he played against Bangladesh after the senior players went on strike.

1988 Birth of England legspinner Adil Rashid, who burst onto the scene as an 18-year-old with seven wickets against Warwickshire on first-class debut. Handed an England cap in 2009, he developed into a steady limited-overs performer. Rashid's Test debut came in 2015, against Pakistan in the UAE, and on England's miserable 2016 Test tour of India, he emerged with 23 wickets, albeit at an average of 37.43 and with diminishing returns as the series wore on.

1986 The day Mike Gatting's nose went west. In the first one-day international against West Indies at Sabina Park, Gatting, sporting a helmet with no visor, wore a short one from Malcolm Marshall right on the bridge of the nose. To add insult to injury, the ball trickled onto the stumps and bowled him. Marshall later found a piece of bone embedded in the ball. It led to a famous exchange at Heathrow Airport, where a battered and bruised Gatting was asked by a journalist "where exactly on the nose" the ball had hit him. As for the match, England were never in it once Tim Robinson and David Gower went without scoring, and West Indies eased home by six wickets with 13 balls to spare.

1886 An oddball is born. The eccentric Ciss Parkin's Test career was ended when he criticised the England captain in a newspaper article, and his county career when he fell out publicly with the Lancashire committee. Parkin played once for Yorkshire before it was discovered he had been born 20 yards outside the county boundary, didn't play again until he was signed by Lancashire eight seasons later (by which time he was 28), and was 35 when he committed to full-time county cricket. An offspinner who was always experimenting, he took 32 wickets in ten Tests, and 1048 wickets at 17.58 in a six year first-class career

1996 A curious career for Phil DeFreitas, who was born today. In his pomp, notably the home summers of 1991 and 1994, he looked irresistible, combining nip with sharp movement off the seam and in the air. One of those bowlers who seemed to beat the bat too often for it just to be bad luck, he was much less effective overseas, where he managed 56 wickets (against 84 in England), at an average of 39 (29) and with a strike rate of a wicket every 84 balls (60). For such a clean striker his batting never really developed, though nobody will ever forget his match-winning assault in Adelaide in 1994-95, nor his momentum-switching battering of Allan Donald with Darren Gough at The Oval the previous summer.

1997 A personal triumph for Mike Atherton, and a rare overseas win for England. Fourteen months on from his Johannesburg heroics he gave another remarkable display of concentration and class - but this time it was a match-winning one. England went into the third and final Test against New Zealand in Christchurch 1-0 up, and without Atherton's 94 not out and 118 they would almost certainly have lost. Instead they successfully chased 305 to win by four wickets, only the second time England had exceeded 300 in the fourth innings of a Test.

1927 Birth of Pakistan's first world-class quick bowler. Though a right-arm seamer, Fazal Mahmood was in many ways the Chaminda Vaas of his day, except he had no Murali for support, and to end with an average of 24.71 was outstanding. He was quite English in style - he was known as "the Alec Bedser of Pakistan" - and was especially deadly on matting surfaces. Fazal's most celebrated performance came at The Oval in 1954, when he took 6 for 53 and 6 for 46 in Pakistan's first win over England, a thrilling, series-squaring 24-run triumph. He bowled 28% of his Test victims, which, along with an economy rate of 2.1 runs per over shows just how accurate a bowler he was.

1969 For such a magnificent player, Garry Sobers the captain made some duff decisions. He was the man who declared when England won by seven wickets in Trinidad in 1967-68, and on this day his decision to put Australia in backfired with a thumping 382-run defeat. This after the Aussies smashed 619 in the first innings. Doug Walters cracked 242 and 103, making it four hundreds in five innings, and West Indies - who went into this final Test 2-1 down in the series - were left to chase the small matter of 735 to win. Sobers made 113, but this one was beyond even him.

1996 Kenya's introduction to international cricket wasn't disastrous by minnow standards. They lost but managed to bat out 50 overs. Steve Tikolo scored 65 in their 199 against India in a World Cup match in Cuttack. Then Sachin Tendulkar and Ajay Jadeja took the game away with a 163-run opening stand - then India's highest partnership in World Cups - and India won by seven wickets. Eleven days later Kenya registered the shock of the tournament, beating West Indies by 73 runs - their only win of the tournament.

1938 Birth of that hearty allrounder Barry Knight, who played 29 Tests for England in the 1960s. He passed 50 twice in Tests and converted both into centuries: 125 against New Zealand in Auckland in 1962-63 and 127 against India in Kanpur a year later. But though Knight's average with the ball (31.75) was pretty respectable, he had a Hendrickian inability to take a five-for, managing none in 29 Tests.

1977 Test debuts for the fearsome West Indian pace duo of Joel Garner and Colin Croft against Pakistan, and though they shared 13 wickets, West Indies came perilously close to losing their first Test in Barbados for 40 years. Their last pair - Croft and Andy Roberts - survived the last 20 overs plus 15 minutes, as Imran Khan and Sarfraz Nawaz homed in for the kill.

1909 A South African Test batsman and England rugby captain is born in Cape Town. Tuppy Owen-Smith played five Tests, all in England in 1929, and made a dashing 129 from No. 7 at Headingley. He later qualified as a doctor of medicine at St Mary's Hospital in London, during which time he won 10 rugby caps for England at fullback. Owen-Smith died in Cape Town in 1990.

1960 Birth of the most toothless bowler in Test history. Sri Lankan left-arm spinner Roger Wijesuriya played four Tests between 1982 and 1986, and had a strike rate of a wicket every 586 balls. On average it took Wijesuriya 97 overs to take a wicket. In other words, if he bowled at both ends throughout a five-day Test, the opposition would be only four down at the end of the match... and they would have scored 1355 runs.

2014 The day New Zealand cheered their first triple-centurion. Brendon McCullum brought the country to its feet with a tenacious 302 and helped his side to a hard-fought draw against India in Wellington, which gave them a series win. Having been bowled out for 192 in the first innings, New Zealand overcame a 246-run deficit to post a mammoth 680 for 8 declared in the second dig. McCullum shared a record sixth-wicket partnership with BJ Watling and then saw James Neesham reel off a century on debut from No. 8. India batted out a little over two sessions, with Virat Kohli bringing up a steady century.

1980 A magnificent solo in the Golden Jubilee Test against India in Bombay from the inimitable IT Botham, who became the first man to score a century and take ten wickets in a Test with a mighty performance. He took 6 for 58 and 7 for 48, and in between smacked a decisive 114 (nobody else reached 50 in the match), adding 171 for the sixth wicket with Bob Taylor, who also set a new Test record by taking ten catches in the match (overtaken by Jack Russell in 1995-96). In statistical terms, this was Botham's zenith: after 25 Tests, he had made 1336 runs at an average of 40 and taken 139 wickets at a cost of 18.

1999 A riot in Calcutta. Nothing to do with Sachin Tendulkar's willow-wielding, but instead a response to him being controversially run out in the Asian Test Championship match against Pakistan. It wasn't the only one: as Pakistan moved towards victory on the final day, there was a three-hour delay as all spectators were removed from the ground. Pakistan's win owed most to a blistering 188 not out from Saeed Anwar, and came in spite of 13 wickets from Javagal Srinath. It was some comeback too: on the first morning they had been 26 for 6.

1937 Birth of the new Bradman. That's how Norman O'Neill was hyped when he burst onto the scene in the late 1950s, but despite a Test average of 45, the tag inevitably proved to be a millstone round his neck. His high point came in the tied Test against West Indies in 1960-61, when he belted a Test-best 181, and at his peak O'Neill could be a devastating strokemaker, particularly off the back foot. He was also 12th man in the official New South Wales team of the 20th century. He died in 2008 aged 71.

1977Doug Walters scored a career-best 250 in Christchurch, batting for six and a half hours on this day. Gary Gilmour made 101 and the two added 217 - still an Australian record for the seventh wicket - to take the side to 552, after which New Zealand just managed to save the follow-on with one wicket in hand. It was also Ewen Chatfield's first match after his horrific head injury two years earlier. Australia set New Zealand a target of 350 and Bev Congdon's unbeaten century, along with Dayle Hadlee's 52-minute vigil, helped the hosts cling on for a draw after they lost eight wickets in the second innings.

2003 They had claimed Bangladesh's scalp in their first World Cup match for 24 years, but by their third fixture Canada reverted to more familiar territory. Against Sri Lanka in Paarl, they were bowled out for 36 - back then the lowest total in ODI history, and nine runs worse than their previous record low in a World Cup, 45 against England at Old Trafford in 1979. Their innings lasted for 18.4 overs, included five ducks and not a single score in double figures, and Sri Lanka rattled to victory inside five overs.

1995 In the first 120 years of Test cricket, no side came from behind to win a three-Test series overseas. On this day Pakistan managed it with a 99-run win over Zimbabwe in Harare. The Pakistanis had Inzamam-ul-Haq to thank: in a low-scoring match where only one other batsman passed 50, his meaty knocks of 101 and 83 made all the difference.

2006 Pakistan prevailed in a low-scoring final against India to win the Under-19 World Cup by 38 runs in Colombo. Legspinner Piyush Chawla took 4 for 8 and Pakistan were bowled out for 109. But the total proved more than sufficient when India fell to 8 for 4 in the second over and then 9 for 6 by the fourth. Right-arm medium-fast bowler Anwar Ali took three in his first over and 5 for 35 overall as India's top seven failed to reach double figures. Chawla's unbeaten 25 was the top score of the innings, which lasted just 18.5 overs.

1985 Birth of Pakistan batsman Azhar Ali who started off with six half-centuries in his first ten Tests and another seven - plus a hundred - in his next ten. He showed sound temperament, batting more than four hours for 68 after Pakistan had conceded a first-innings lead against England in Abu Dhabi - a match Pakistan eventually won after bowling England out for 72. A dip in form resulted in him being dropped in 2013 but Azhar returned in style, scoring a brisk hundred to help Pakistan chase 302 in 57.3 overs and square the series against Sri Lanka. He was out of the one-day team for more than two years but, surprisingly, was appointed ODI captain in his recall in 2015. The same year, he scored 226 in Mirpur. The next year Azhar became the fourth Pakistan batsman to score a Test triple-hundred - 302 not out against West Indies. Two months later, on his first tour of Australia, he made a Test double-century at the MCG, and stepped down from the one-day captaincy at the end of the tour after Pakistan lost the ODI series 4-1.

1994 The first day of the Test leg of England's tour of the Caribbean got off to a flier when Mike Atherton and Alec Stewart added 121 in comfortable style for the first wicket. Then the roof caved in. England were all out for 234, West Indies piled up a big lead despite sliding to 23 for 3, and England went down by eight wickets.

1891 A cricketing farmer is born. Jack "Farmer" White didn't turn it much for a left-arm spin bowler, instead relying on accuracy and variations of pace. He served England well between the reigns of Wilfred Rhodes and Hedley Verity, playing 14 of his 15 Tests after the age of 37. His finest hour came in the steaming heat of Adelaide in 1928-29, when his match figures were 124.5-37-256-13 in England's 12-run victory. His second-innings 8 for 126 is fourth in the Wisden 100.

1970Ruwan Kalpage, born today, was a combative allrounder in domestic cricket in Sri Lanka but struggled at the Test level. While he scored over 5800 runs at 34.16 and took 427 wickets at 22.71 with his offbreaks in first-class matches, he made only 294 at 18.37 and took just 12 wickets in 11 Tests. His opportunities were also limited by the emergence of legspinner Upul Chandana. After quitting the game in 1999, he assisted Trevor Chappell as Sri Lanka's fielding coach before taking over the role in 2001. He also coached U-15, U-19 and A teams.

2016 Brendon McCullum said goodbye to international cricket by breaking the record for fastest Test hundred by two balls - 54 to the 56 the joint holders at the time, Viv Richards and Misbah-ul-Haq had taken - in Christchurch against Australia. Coming in to bat at 32 for 3 on a lively pitch, McCullum hit his second ball for four. Then with 15 minutes left for lunch, he took Mitchell Marsh for 21 runs in an over. He was caught off a no-ball on 39, and responded with a six and two fours from his next five balls. McCullum took New Zealand to 370, but centuries from Joe Burns and Usman Khawaja gave Australia a series-winning lead.

1957 One of the greatest bowling performances in Test history: Hugh Tayfield's match-winning effort in the fourth Test against England in Johannesburg on this day. England needed 232 to take a 3-0 lead with one to play and were cruising at 147 for 2, but Tayfield chipped away and ended up with 9 for 113. He bowled throughout the last day, sending down 35 eight-ball overs in a row. With England still 17 runs adrift, Tayfield had Peter Loader caught on the boundary by his brother Arthur, who was fielding as substitute. "Toey" was chaired off the field, and for good measure he took a six-for in the next match to give South Africa an unlikely share of the series.

1963 The end of the road for two of Australia's greatest cricketers. Neil Harvey finished off with a brace of twenties, and Alan Davidson with six wickets, in the drawn fifth Test against England in Sydney. The series ended 1-1: the first five-match series in Australia to be drawn. Harvey closed with 6149 runs, and Davidson with 1328 runs and 186 wickets, the last - AC Smith, caught by Bobby Simpson - with his final ball.

1993 Graeme Hick turned his long-overdue maiden Test hundred into an outstanding 178 in Bombay. Assertive, clean and at times brutal, it was a showcase of everything that was good about Hick. But three Tests later he was dropped. His fault or the selectors'? When you look at his post-178, pre-axe scores, you'd have to say the latter: 47, 68, 26, 34, 22, 20 and 64. As for the match, England's ignominious spinwash (46 wickets out of 60 fell to Anil Kumble, Venkatapathy Raju and Rajesh Chauhan) was completed by another innings defeat. Vinod Kambli (remember him?) trumped Hick by turning his maiden Test ton into 224.

1949 A rotund offspinner is born. It's hard to imagine Eddie Hemmings thriving in the modern, three-dimensional era, but in his day he served England well. Six of his 16 Tests came in his Indian summer of 1990, when he took his only five-for to help England to an important win over New Zealand, and was famously belted for four successive sixes by Kapil Dev at Lord's. He could bat too, and made 95 as a nightwatchman in Sydney in 1982-83.

1974 The seventh-highest first-class innings of all time. Pakistani Aftab Baloch amassed the small matter of 428, batting for Sind against Baluchistan today. Baloch was already familiar with the record books: when he made his Test debut, aged 16 years 221 days, he was the second-youngest player in Test history. He averaged 48.5 but played only two Tests, and ended with a blistering 60 not out against West Indies in Lahore in 1974-75, a match that finished today and is better remembered for...

1975 ... a match-saving debut century for left-handed West Indian opener Len Baichan. Baichan batted throughout the last day, ending unbeaten on 105, and seemed to be set for a long career at the top. Not so. Roy Fredericks was already established, and with Gordon Greenidge also just on the scene, Baichan was left looking for scraps. He found some in the last Test in Australia that winter, when he was pitched in against Lillee and Thomson at No. 3, but scores of 3 and 20 were his last entries at the top level. He finished with an average of 46.

1983 Australian fast bowler Clint McKay, born today, picked up three wickets in his first match, in Hyderabad, in 2009, including that of Sachin Tendulkar, who had scored 175 in a losing cause. McKay carried his form into the home series against Pakistan, finishing as the leading wicket-taker with 14 from five matches. In between he also made his Test debut, in Perth against West Indies, but due to stiff competition for fast-bowling slots, he was shunted back into a limited-overs role. In the third CB Series final, against Sri Lanka, in 2012, McKay took a match-winning 5 for 28.

2017 England allrounder Ben Stokes became the IPL's highest-paid overseas signing when he was bought for US$2.16 million by Rising Pune Supergiants in the tenth auction. Fellow Englishman, fast bowler Tymal Mills, was bought for $1.8 million by Royal Challengers Bangalore - the most paid for a specialist bowler. It was also a big pay day for 18-year-old Afghanistan lespinner Rashid Khan, who was picked up by Sunrisers Hyderabad for $595,000. The more experienced Indian players got no bids - Ishant Sharma, Irfan Pathan, Pragyan Ojha, Cheteshwar Pujara, Parvez Rasool and RP Singh were unsold - while several uncapped players were picked up at high prices. Fast bowler Mohammad Siraj was bought by Sunrisers for $390,000, left-arm seamer Aniket Choudhary by RCB for $300,000, K Gowtham by Mumbai Indians for $300,000, T Natarajan by Kings XI Punjab for $445,000, Basil Thampi by Gujarat Lions for $125,000 and M Ashwin by Delhi Daredevils for $150,000. Among capped Indian players, Karn Sharma was bought by Mumbai for $475,000 and Varun Aaron by Kings XI for $415,000.

1924 One of the great cricketing men is born. A stylish batsman of the highest class, Frank Worrell was the first black player to captain West Indies on a regular basis, including on the 1963 tour of England, which they won 3-1, and the famous 1960-61 series in Australia. West Indies and Australia now play for the Sir Frank Worrell Trophy. The 1950 tour of England was a personal triumph for Worrell, who topped the Test batting averages with 539 runs at an average of 89.83. He also made his best Test score, 261, that year at Trent Bridge. He was knighted in 1964 and was a senator in Jamaica when he died at 42 of leukemia; he was honoured with a memorial service in Westminster Abbey.

1989 The last day England held the Ashes for more than 16 years. Australia's win at Old Trafford gave them a 3-0 lead in the series. At the start of a forgettable day for English cricket, a 16-man squad for a lucrative rebel tour of South Africa was announced. Nine had appeared in that summer's Ashes series, and three had captained England. One of them, John Emburey, almost saved this Test, adding 142 in four hours with Jack Russell, who made his first Test hundred, after England had been 59 for 6.

1969 England's premier batsman of his era, Graham Thorpe, was born. He showed he was made of the right stuff from the start, scoring a century on Test debut, against Australia at Trent Bridge in 1993. A batsman whose performances transcended statistics, Thorpe seized countless initiatives with his resourceful counterattacks. Throughout the 1990s, England's sporadic victories bore his stamp: Bridgetown 1993-94, The Oval 1994, Adelaide 1994-95, Old Trafford 1995, and Edgbaston 1997, when he added 288 with his old mate Nasser Hussain as England thrashed Australia. Thorpe's finest moment was in Colombo in 2000-01, when he made 113 and 32 - both not out - as England sealed a famous series victory. But in 2002 his career reached crisis point when his marriage crumbled in view of the tabloids, leading him to announce his retirement from one-day cricket and take an indefinite break from all forms of the game. He returned in 2003, and was a vital part of England's plans in their rout of West Indies in 2003-04 and their whitewash of New Zealand a few months later. He eventually retired after not being picked for the 2005 Ashes.

1978 An attacking Zimbabwean allrounder is born. Andy Blignaut returned the best figures by a Zimbabwean on Test debut - 5 for 73 in Bulawayo in April 2001. He was an asset with his aggressive lower-order hitting to go with his pace bowling, but his career stalled in 2001-02 amid reports of disputes with administrators and fellow players. He pursued a number of lines of employment, including, briefly, modelling. In his return match, late in 2002, he claimed 5 for 79 against Pakistan. His career suffered yet another setback when he joined 14 rebel players in the standoff with the Zimbabwe board in 2004, and was ultimately sacked. He returned briefly the following year but took part in another strike before leaving to play for Lions in South Africa. In early 2010, Blignaut made yet another return, along with several former players who came back to the Zimbabwe fold.

1910 India's first lethal pace bowler is born. Mohammad Nissar could swing and cut the ball with verve, and he had genuine speed. Nissar's partnership upfront with Amar Singh was as legendary as it was successful. In India's maiden Test, at Lord's in 1932, he plunged the England innings into disarray by knocking over the stumps of Holmes and Sutcliffe. On that trip Nissar grabbed 71 wickets at 18.09 to head the averages. Against the Australians on their tour of India in the winter of 1935, he took 32 wickets in four "Tests" at 13 runs apiece. On his final tour of England, Nissar departed the Test scene with a devastating spell that yielded four wickets in five overs.

1931 South African allrounder Trevor Goddard was born. He is remembered for leading South Africa to a draw in the series against Australia in 1963-64 after he had become captain virtually by default and his team had been described as no-hopers by the media in both countries. He hit a captain's century against England in Johannesburg in 1964-65 and took a wicket with his last ball in Test cricket, against Australia on the same ground in 1969-70. A left-hander of classically correct technique with bat and ball, Goddard was renowned for analysing opponents' strengths and weaknesses with uncanny accuracy and speed. He became an evangelist preacher after retirement.

1993 England won the women's World Cup for the first time since the inaugural tournament of 1973 (see July 28). In the final at Lord's, the opener Janette Brittin top-scored with 48 in a 67-run victory over New Zealand.

1935Geoff Pullar, born today, started as a middle-order batsman, but his solid technique and phlegmatic temperament persuaded the England selectors to try him as an opener in 1959. He responded with 75 against India at Headingley, followed by 131 at Old Trafford - the first Test century scored by a Lancastrian on his home ground. Pullar withstood the West Indian fast bowlers calmly and successfully in 1959-60, but his form fell away in the latter part of his international career. He played the last of his 28 Tests in 1963.

1955 Born today, Arun Lal was an opener who played 16 Tests for India between 1982 and 1989. While he piled up runs in domestic cricket, Lal got few chances in Tests as he competed for a spot alongside Sunil Gavaskar with Kris Srikkanth, Anshuman Gaekwad and Ravi Shastri. Summoned for a Test call-up against Sri Lanka in 1982 at the relatively late age of 27, he responded with 63 in his debut innings. In 1987, he got a chance to play in his adopted hometown, Calcutta, when Gavaskar pulled out. Lal made two half-centuries, and following Gavaskar's retirement, he made 11 successive Test appearances. After retirement, he became a television commentator.

1961 On the last day at Old Trafford, Richie Benaud went round the wicket to bowl a famous spell of 5 for 12 that destroyed England, who had looked in command, to help retain the Ashes.

1983 At Headingley, New Zealand won a Test in England for the first time. Lance Cairns took ten - which included a career-best 7 for 74 - and Ewen Chatfield six to bowl England out for under 260 twice. That set up a target of 103 for New Zealand but Bob Willis gave them some jitters by taking five early wickets; this was the match in which he became the fourth man to take 300 Test wickets.

1952 Birth of Yajurvindra Singh. Playing for India against England in Bangalore in 1976-77, he equalled a world record by taking five catches in an innings.

1934 Birth of unlucky John Beck. Playing for New Zealand against South Africa in Cape Town in 1953-54, he was run out for 99 - and never did make a Test hundred.

1861 Birth of Sammy Jones. The last survivor of the original "Ashes" Test of 1882, he died in 1951. His unsporting run-out by WG Grace inspired the Australians to their sensational win. On his third England tour in 1888 he survived a bout of smallpox.

1937 Birth of the maverick Pakistani Saeed Ahmed. A brilliant strokemaker at No. 3 or 4, the spiky Saeed is unfortunately best remembered for the undignified end to his Test career. He declared himself unfit for the third Test against Australia with a back injury, following a heated altercation with Dennis Lillee in the previous Test in Melbourne. But as Lillee was vowing revenge on a Sydney greentop, the Pakistan management was sceptical about Saeed's injury and sent him home for indiscipline. For all that, Saeed - the half-brother of Younis Ahmed - was a terrific player, as a Test average in excess of 40 suggests. He made 508 runs in his first Test series, in the Caribbean in 1957-58, and had a taste for big hundreds: three of his five at Test level were of 150 or more.

1900 At the age of 28 Tom Goddard, who was born today, switched from fast bowling to offspin with devastating effect. He took 184 wickets in his first season as a twirler, and in all, took over 100 wickets on 16 occasions, finishing with 2979 wickets. His best returns were 248 in 1937 and 238 in 1947, when he was 46. He played only eight Tests, and though he took a hat-trick in Johannesburg in 1938-39, his best work was undoubtedly at county level. A Gloucester man through and through, his regular "How wer're it?" appeal was defined by its West Country inflection. And when he died in 1966, a road in Gloucester was named Goddard Way.

1997 All sorts of shenanigans in Bulawayo, where the first ODI of the series between Zimbabwe and New Zealand ended in a tie. Chris Harris needed two off the last ball to win the match for the tourists, but as he drove it past the bowler, John Rennie, an over-exuberant crowd surged onto the field. Craig Evans beat the throng to the ball - had it reached them New Zealand would have won - and ran out Gavin Larsen as he attempted a second run. It sealed the 13th tie in ODI history.

1926 Birth of the last wicketkeeper to make 100 dismissals in a season. Roy Booth was born in Yorkshire, but he achieved the feat twice for Worcestershire - in 1960 and 1964, their first championship season - and is one of only seven keepers ever to manage it. In all, Booth made 1125 first-class dismissals between 1951 and 1970, but never came close to Test selection. A batting average of 18.91 was largely responsible for that.

1967 One-cap wonder Mike Smith, who was born today, was supposed to hurry Australia to defeat in the pivotal fourth Test at Headingley in 1997, with his left-arm swing. But his deliveries hardly moved off the straight and it didn't help when Graham Thorpe grassed a sitter off Matt Elliott, on 29 at the time, in Smith's third over. Elliott went on to punish England for a further 170 runs, for which Smith, who never really came close to selection again, paid the heaviest price of all.

2000 In the deciding ODI in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe beat New Zealand by six wickets in a thrilling match, to take the series 2-1. Alistair Campbell made an unbeaten 99 and Guy Whittall smacked 28 off 14 balls. The pair added 42 in four overs to take Zimbabwe past their target of 265 with 13 balls to spare.

1999 While he had his lean spells in Tests, Sourav Ganguly's status as one of the world's best one-day batsmen was rarely ever in doubt. On this day in Nairobi he stroked India to a comprehensive victory over Zimbabwe in the LG Cup with a blistering 139 that included 11 fours and five sixes. It kickstarted a golden period for Ganguly, in which he made nine hundreds in 37 ODIs.

1932 The first use of the word Bodyline, on the first day of the first Test at the SCG. Hugh Buggy sent his copy to the Melbourne Age using the phrase "body-line bowling" and his sub-editor, Ray Robinson, appeared to shorten this to one word. It was quickly picked up on. In the match itself Australia batted, and the sixth ball of Harold Larwood's first over - to an orthodox field - almost took Bill Woodfull's head off. Bill Ponsford and a padded Jack Fingleton also took painful blows. Don Bradman missed the match as he was in dispute with the board.

1977The arrival of World Series cricket was greeted with apathy as barely 200 spectators were present at VFL Park outside Melbourne to watch Australia take on West Indies. On an uninspiring first day, Australia were bowled out for 256. It was a better performance than the official Australia side, who were playing in Brisbane. They managed just 166 against India.

1979 Birth of the Pakistani allrounder who is somewhat of a paradox. Abdul Razzaq spent most of his career playing it safe, digging in at No. 7, and breaking partnerships with his late inswingers. But every now and then he exploded: he became the youngest man to take a Test hat-trick against Sri Lanka in Galle in 1999-2000, and he creamed an amazing 40-ball 75 in the first one-dayer against England in Karachi in 2000-01. After stints in the ICL, he returned to the official fold in 2009, and immediately made an impact by helping Pakistan to the World T20 crown. in 2010, his nerveless unbeaten century gave Pakistan a thrilling one-wicket win off the penultimate ball against South Africa in Abu Dhabi.

1985 Only two batsmen passed 40 in the third one-dayer between Pakistan and West Indies in Peshawar - but one of them was Viv Richards, who decided the match with a violent 39-ball 66. It included five fours and four sixes, and West Indies eased home by 40 runs to take a 2-1 lead in a series they eventually won 3-2.

1992 In the drawn first Test between New Zealand and Sri Lanka in Moratuwa, John Wright became the first New Zealander to make 5000 Test runs when he reached 14 in the second innings. He celebrated by boring everyone to tears - he spent 222 balls and five hours over 42, although Andrew Jones later trumped him with a spectacular 102-ball, 149-minute 14.

1906Eric Dalton, who was born today, was one of the finest all-round sportsmen produced by South Africa between the wars. Fortunately picked for the 1929 tour to England as a 22-year-old, he looked a very good, attacking middle-order batsman. On his return to England in 1935, he scored 1446 runs at 37.07, including his first Test hundred, at The Oval. With the wickets of Bob Wyatt and Wally Hammond in England's first innings he also contributed valuably to South Africa's famous victory at Lord's, their first over England in England. Dalton later concentrated on golf, a game which he also played with great distinction for many years.

1991 Meek surrender from the Indians in the first Test against Australia, in Brisbane, where they were soundly beaten by ten wickets. A pacy Gabba surface was not exactly the Indian batsmen's idea of fun, and the game was up from the moment they slipped to 83 for 6 on the first afternoon. Craig McDermott, Merv Hughes and Mike Whitney shared all 20 wickets to fall. The match was also the first to be officiated by a match referee - the former England captain MJK Smith did the honours.

1970 England's triumphant Ashes campaign got underway with a draw in Brisbane. That represented a decent effort after the Aussies stormed to 418 for 3 before losing 7 for 15 to John Snow and Derek Underwood. A solid England reply ensured a draw, and most attention centred on Colin Cowdrey, who passed Wally Hammond's world Test-record aggregate of 7249 runs when he reached 22.

1945 Birth of the first man to take a one-day international wicket. Australian tearaway Alan "Froggy" Thomson set the pyjama circus in motion when he had Geoff Boycott caught by Bill Lawry at the MCG in 1970-71. Boycott hadn't really grasped the essence of one-day cricket - his 8 took 37 balls. And this was Thomson's only one-day appearance. He also played four Tests against England the same winter.

Andrew Flintoff consoled Brett Lee after England sneaked home by just two runs

2005 The nerve-shredder to end all nerve-shredders, and the culmination of one of the closest and greatest Tests of all time. Despite a brilliant all-round performance from Andrew Flintoff, the fourth day dawned with Australia needing 107 more runs with two wickets standing. Shane Warne and Brett Lee reduced the requirement to double figures before Lee and Michael Kasprowicz added 59 of the most heroic tail-end runs in history. A sense of grim inevitability enveloped a previously buoyant ground, but there was one late twist in store. Steve Harmison crashed a desperate bouncer into Kasprowicz's glove, and Geraint Jones took a tumbling catch behind the stumps to seal a series-turning two-run victory. The defining image belonged to Flintoff, who broke off the celebrations to console a crestfallen Lee, whose unbeaten 43 had been an innings of extreme heroism.

1948 Birth of one of the great Test batsmen. Greg Chappell's 7110 Test runs were scored at an average of 53.86 and with a smoothness that disguised his competitive steel. His on-drive was one of the great shots. He and his brother Ian both captained Australia with plenty of success; Greg scored twin centuries on his captaincy debut, and among the major highlights of his career were his two SuperTest centuries in Trinidad and Guyana (he made 621 runs in five games) against an attack that included Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Colin Croft, Joel Garner and Wayne Daniel. After retirement he went into coaching - his most notable stint was his stormy tenure with the Indian national team in the mid-2000s.

1971 Feisty England seamer Dominic Cork was born. He took 7 for 43 in his debut Test, at Lord's, against West Indies in 1995, and his hat-trick later in the series was the first by an England bowler in a Test since Peter Loader's in 1957.

1987 Master batsman Javed Miandad completed one of his six double-centuries in Test cricket. During his 260 at The Oval he became the first to score 6000 Test runs for Pakistan, whose total of 708, their highest ever, was more than enough to draw the match and clinch the series.

1973 Death of a great allrounder. Jack Gregory's fast bowling terrorised England's batsmen in the early 1920s - and he still holds two major Test records: a century in 70 minutes in Johannesburg in 1921-22, and 15 catches in the 1920-21 series against England.

2010 India successfully chased 257 - their fourth-highest Test target at the time - largely thanks to VVS Laxman's unbeaten century, scored under pressure and with a back injury. The win helped India draw the series against Sri Lanka at the P Sara Oval. They looked shaky when they fell to 62 for 4 on the final day, but Laxman's 109-run stand with Sachin Tendulkar steadied them. After Tendulkar's dismissal, Suresh Raina provided the support Laxman needed to see India through.

1980 Birth of Zimbabwe batsman Dion Ebrahim, who made his Test debut in 2001. After a shaky start, he made three scores of 71 in the space of four Tests and followed that with 94 against India in 2002. In the turmoil that followed the sacking of Heath Streak in 2004, Ebrahim was made vice-captain, but he was a high-profile casualty of the dispute between players and the board at the end of 2005. He left to play club cricket in England but returned to domestic cricket in Zimbabwe in 2009.

1986 The first Bangladeshi to have his name on the Lord's honours board is born. Shahadat Hossain was a promising fast bowler with a smooth run-up and open-chested action. His Test debut at Lord's in 2005 was a chastening experience - he conceded 101 runs in just 12 overs - but his second visit in 2010, when he nabbed 5 for 98, was a memorable affair. Hossain was also the first Bangladeshi to take a hat-trick in ODIs, which he achieved against Zimbabwe in 2006.

1879 One of South Africa's fastest bowlers was born. JJ "Kodgee" Kotze took only six Test wickets at 40.50, but most of the bowling was done by googly bowlers at the time. His long run-up and strong body action frightened a lot of batsmen, and he could maintain his pace for long spells. He took a hat-trick twice, and 8 for 18 for Western Province v Griqualand West in 1902-03.

1937 England slow left-armer Don Wilson was born. He played in only six Tests (1963-64 to 1970-71) but took 1189 first-class wickets before becoming the MCC's head coach at Lord's. ESPN CRICINFO

1997The day another Ashes dream died. England had to win at Trent Bridge to keep their hopes alive, and when they were left to chase 451 in a day and a half, they decided to go for it. A ball short of 49 overs later they had been dismissed for 186, and it was all over for another 18 months. There was a desperate air about England from the start of this game - they even chucked in both Hollioakes for their Test debuts - but at least they gave it a go: Jason Gillespie had bizarre figures of 8-0-65-3 in that second innings. The key moment came earlier on this, the fourth day. When Steve Waugh was out first ball of the morning, Australia were leading by 281 runs, not unassailable on a good pitch. Enter Ian Healy to swat and swipe the initiative for one last time, with a 49-ball half-century.

2000 The last day of Test cricket for Arjuna Ranatunga, whose 28 not out at Colombo's Sinhalese Sports Club helped draw the match and the series against South Africa. He was only 18 when he played in Sri Lanka's very first Test, against England in 1981-82, and his appearance against Pakistan in 2000-01 made him the only man to play in his country's first and 100th Tests. The dominant figure in Sri Lankan cricket for two decades, he was captain in 56 Tests and scored 5105 runs in all.

1989 At the end of the first day of the fifth Test, Australia emphasised their series-long superiority over the England bowling by scoring 301 without loss. Opening batsmen Mark Taylor and Geoff Marsh, later captain and coach of the national team, went on to make 329 for the first wicket, still the highest stand for any wicket in a Trent Bridge Test. Allan Border's team declared at 602 for 6 and won by an innings to go 4-0 up in the series.

1998A day of destiny for England at Headingley, with the series poised 1-1. After Angus Fraser took a third consecutive five-for in the first innings to keep South Africa's lead to 22, the visitors began the last day of the final Test on 185 for 8, needing 219 to win. In 29 minutes it was all over when Darren Gough trapped Makhaya Ntini lbw, a dodgy decision in a match full of them. The performance of the neutral umpire, Javed Akhtar, was to come under scrutiny when the match-fixing scandal broke, but England couldn't have cared less: they'd won their first five-match series since 1986-87.

2014 The Test between Sri Lanka and Pakistan in Galle sparked to life on the fifth day (after the sides scored over 450 apiece in their first innings over the first four) thanks to Rangana Herath, Pakistan's unpredictability and the weather. Pakistan went into the day needing to bat it out, but their go-slow backfired, as Herath picked up six wickets to dismiss them for 180. It left the hosts 99 to chase with rain closing in and the light fading. A big, dark cloud hung over the ground as Angelo Mathews swatted an unbeaten 25 off 13 to drag his side home with under five overs remaining. The rain pelted down seconds after the winning runs were scored.

1991Another great day for English cricket. At The Oval, Phil Tufnell demolished West Indies with a spell of 6 for 4 in 33 balls - all caught - and set England on their way to a series-levelling victory. The West Indies batsmen weren't so much trying to run before they could walk as make love before they'd kissed - the last six managed only four runs between them.

1947 Derbyshire fast bowler Alan Ward was born. When England went to Australia in 1970-71, their captain, Ray Illingworth, trumpeted his opening attack of Ward and John Snow. But while Snow thrived in the limelight, taking 31 wickets to win the series, Ward shrank from it - even before his tour was wrecked by injury. He played in only five Tests, taking 14 wickets, and was sacked by Derbyshire in 1976. A genuine sense of waste.

1914 Six days after the outbreak of the Great War, Surrey's home match against Kent was transferred to Lord's after The Oval was requisitioned for military use. Surrey, the champions, won inside two days, with WG Grace among the spectators.

1948Cyril Washbrook's benefit match earned him £14,000, which remained a record until Colin Milburn's benefit in 1971. The presence of Don Bradman's Australians did Washbrook's coffers no harm - and the Don rewarded the spectators with his highest score at Old Trafford. His unbeaten 133 was his last century against an English county. Meanwhile Washbrook top-scored with 38 out of 130 in a match Lancashire were happy to draw.

1976 Death of one of the all-time great wicketkeepers. Bert Oldfield was Australia's No. 1 throughout the 1920s and most of the 1930s, neat and tidy and sharp as a stoat. Often finishing off the work of legspinners Clarrie Grimmett and Bill O'Reilly, he made 52 stumpings in Test cricket, still the record for any country. The ball from Harold Larwood that knocked him out in Adelaide in 1932-33 was one of the flashpoints of the notorious Bodyline series - but he recovered to help regain the Ashes in 1934 and retain them in 1936-37.

1978 Notts and England wicketkeeper Chris Read was born. In his debut Test, against New Zealand at Edgbaston in 1999, he made eight dismissals and looked the brightest young England keeper in years. But then he had a few problems keeping to the spinners, eyesight trouble led to him being convulsively bowled by Chris Cairns' slower ball, New Zealand won the series - and Read's Test career stalled. He had been in and out of the Test team, keeping in the final two Tests of the 2006-07 Ashes after Geraint Jones' poor performance behind the stumps, but that was to be his last series.

1958 Birth of a more successful England wicketkeeper. In his debut Test innings, in Brisbane in 1986-87, Surrey's Jack Richards was out for 0 - but made up for that in the second Test, when his 133 in Perth was the second Test hundred by an England keeper in Australia, after Alan Knott's in 1974-75 (Matt Prior joined the list with a century in Sydney in 2011). Richards averaged 37.71 in the series, and although he went the way of all flesh against West Indies in 1988, he'd had his moment in the sun as England's wicketkeeper in a victorious Ashes series.

2000 The death of Gilbert Parkhouse. A successful Test recall after eight years (he put on 146 with Geoff Pullar against India at Headingley in 1959) couldn't banish the memory of the 1950-51 series Down Under, when his highest score was 28. But he was a real stalwart for Glamorgan, scoring 22,619 runs and helping them win the Championship in his first season (1948)

2005 Another memorable milestone, as Shane Warne became the first bowler to take 600 Test wickets. And he did it at Old Trafford, where he spawned his legend back in 1993. This time the victim was Marcus Trescothick and the dismissal a rather more scrappy affair than the wonder ball that did for Mike Gatting all those years before. Aiming to sweep, Tresco scuffed the ball with the back of his bat and Adam Gilchrist completed a juggling catch as the ball bobbled up off his thigh.

1977 One of the most highly charged days in English cricket ended with Geoffrey Boycott making his 100th hundred. In a perfect piece of stage management, he scored it on his home ground, Headingley, in a Test against Australia. He was the first player to hit his 100th ton in a Test match. Boycott went on to make 191. Four days later, after Derek Randall held a catch from Rod Marsh off Mike Hendrick's bowling and then cartwheeled to celebrate, England won by an innings to regain the Ashes.

1870 One of England's mightiest pace bowlers was born. Blessed with a powerful frame and boundless stamina, Surrey's Tom Richardson could bowl fast all day - and often had to. At Old Trafford in 1896, for example, he sent down 110.3 five-ball overs and took 13 for 244 in a narrow defeat. He finished with 88 wickets in only 14 Tests and took 809 in first-class cricket in the three seasons from 1895 to 1897, a towering physical achievement by one of the all-time greats.

1965 Death of one of Australia's finest captains and ambassadors. An opening batsman known as The Unbowlable, Bill Woodfull averaged 46 in Tests, scoring seven centuries - and was best known for his courageous captaincy during the 1932-33 Bodyline series, when he carried his bat in Adelaide and stood firm against the assaults of Harold Larwood, who hit him on the body several times. There was no shortage of success by way of compensation: Woodfull captained Australia in England in 1930 and 1934, regaining the Ashes on his birthday each time.

1884 The first double-century stand in Test cricket was completed, at The Oval. Billy Murdoch and HJH "Tup" Scott made 205 of their 207 for the third wicket, with Scott scoring his only Test century. Australia eventually made 551 but England held out for a draw.

1909 By adding 130 to his 136 in the first innings, Warren Bardsley became the first player to score a century in each innings of a Test. The draw at The Oval gave Australia the series 2-1. Bardsley, one of the great batsmen of his generation, had to wait 17 years for his next hundred against England: 193 not out at Lord's.

1954 Birth of that attacking little batsman Yashpal Sharma, who made a duck in his last Test innings and averaged a rather moderate 33.45 in his 37 Tests for India - but also scored 140, the second of his two Test hundreds, in a partnership of 316 with Gundappa Viswanath against England in Madras in 1981-82, which remained till 2011 the highest stand for any Test between the two countries.

1974 Birth of all-round talent Anju Jain, who was India's captain, wicketkeeper and opening bat in the 2000 women's World Cup, and led them to the semis, where they lost to eventual champions New Zealand. She also played in the 2005 World Cup, where India were runners-up. Jain scored her only Test century in her second match - against England in Kolkata in 1995. After retirement she became a national selector.

Dujon and Marshall, along with Richards, bowed out of Test cricket together in 1991

1991 For three giants of West Indies cricket, their last day in Test cricket ended in defeat at The Oval. Jeff Dujon finished with 272 dismissals, the record for a West Indies wicketkeeper, Malcolm Marshall with 376 wickets at only 20.94 each - and Viv Richards hit 60 to keep his Test batting average over 50. But England's win gave them a share of the series.

1972 Australia's captain Ian Chappell and his brother Greg became the first pair of brothers to score centuries in the same Test innings. Although the destination of the Ashes had already been decided, Australia's young team won this fifth Test, at The Oval, to square the series and herald their domination of the 1970s.

1940 Birth of one of South Africa's most competitive and successful allrounders. Eddie Barlow averaged 45.74 in Tests, hitting seven centuries - and took 40 wickets with his medium pace, all while playing in glasses. Playing for the Rest of the World against England at Headingley in 1970, he took four wickets in five balls, including a hat-trick. A promising opening partnership with Barry Richards was halted at the embryonic stage by South Africa's exclusion from Test cricket after 1969-70.

1996 At Headingley, a funny thing - a Test wicket for Michael Atherton. There were only ever two, and his old Lancashire buddy Wasim Akram was the man with egg on his face here. Atherton brought himself on for his first Test bowl in six years as the match petered out into a draw, and Akram looked nonplussed when given out lbw as he thrust his front pad forward.

1986 Another rarity - a New Zealand Test victory in England. This was only the second in 33 attempts, and came courtesy of yet another storming display from Richard Hadlee. As well as a ten-for, he slashed 68 with the match in the balance. But, bizarrely, the highest scores in the match came from two offspinners called John, batting at No. 8: New Zealand's Bracewell made 110, and England's Emburey 75.

2013 An Australian collapse in Chester-le-Street as Stuart Broad ripped through their line-up with 6 for 20 in 45 balls. Chasing 299, Australia were cruising at 168 for 2 and seemed likely to head into the final Test with a chance of squaring the series but Broad thwarted their plans with a searing burst, helping England go 3-0 up in the series. His 11 for 121 was the best analysis for an England bowler in the Ashes since Phil Tufnell's 11 for 93 at The Oval in 1997.

1969Stuart Williams, born today, was a romantic young West Indian strokeplayer whose cavalier method - step back and strafe everything through the covers - became increasingly stereotyped as his career wore on. The high point was a lone Test century, made against India, but Williams passed 50 only four times in 52 innings. In 2004 he had a finger amputated after a fielding accident. He later became a selector.

1976 Birth of Pedro Collins, who was for a long time best remembered for a testicle injury courtesy a Jason Gillespie delivery. Collins was a keen footballer before he fell into cricket, and came to notice as a fast-medium left-armer who found enough swing into the right-hander to cause the best batsmen difficulty. In November 1998 he took three wickets in 11 balls for West Indies A against India, a spell that led to his Test debut against Australia the following March. Collins had a knack for big scalps, dismissing Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar and Steve Waugh three times in five Tests each.

1923 Birth of a man whose dismissal led to repercussions for the umpire. In his debut Test innings, against England in Kingston in 1953-54, John (JK) Holt was on 94 when he was given out lbw by umpire Perry Burke, whose family were assaulted by spectators. West Indies won by 140 runs, and Holt got his maiden Test hundred in the next Test, scoring 166 in another win in Bridgetown.

1924 The quintessential county medium-pacer Derek Shackleton was born. In 20 consecutive seasons, he took at least 100 wickets each for Hampshire, putting him second on the all-time list. Unlucky to be a contemporary of Trueman, Statham, Tyson and Loader, he had a gap of over ten years in his Test career, returning to take three wickets in four balls in the famous nerve-wracking draw against West Indies at Lord's in 1963.

1956 Birth of Sidath Wettimuny, who opened the batting in Sri Lanka's debut Test, against England in Colombo in 1981-82, and played in 23 Tests in all. His greatest moment was in batting all day in a Test match at Lord's, his 190 helping Sri Lanka to a draw. He and Mithra Wettimuny opened the innings together against New Zealand in 1982-83, a rare achievement for a pair of brothers.

1941 Death of one of England's greatest slow bowlers, Bobby Peel. With eight wickets in hand, Australia needed only 64 runs to win the first Test of the 1894-95 series - but a hungover Peel was held under a cold shower before being sent out to take 6 for 67 and win the match by just ten runs. It was the only time before Headingley in 1981 that a team won a Test match after following on. A superb slow left-armer, little Bobby finished his Test career with 102 wickets at only 16.81 apiece - but the drink got him in the end: his county career ended when he allegedly relieved himself on the pitch in front of his captain.

1884 In a drawn match at The Oval, Australia's Billy Murdoch completed his innings of 211, the first double-century in Test cricket. He was dropped three times, all off poor George Ulyett, but Wisden described it as "a magnificent innings". Murdoch went on to play one Test for England, in Cape Town in 1891-92.

1997 In a drawn match against India at Colombo's Sinhalese Sports Club, Sanath Jayasuriya became one of only eight batsmen to be dismissed for 199 in a Test innings. The others have been Mudassar Nazar, Mohammad Azharuddin, Matthew Elliott, Steve Waugh, Younis Khan, Ian Bell and Steven Smith.

1886 The innings of 170 by WG Grace was a new highest score for England. Easily the top score in the match, at The Oval, it helped England win by an innings. His only other Test hundred (152 in 1880) was also scored against Australia at The Oval, and was also a highest score for England at the time.

1897 Birth of the first man to captain West Indies to victory in a Test match. Marius "Maurice" Fernandes averaged only 12.25 with the bat in his two Tests - but in the second, in Georgetown in 1929-30, he made some useful runs and masterminded a win by 289 runs that squared the series.

1960 Glamorgan pace bowler Greg Thomas was born. He was genuinely fast, but injury wrecked his chance of developing into a force at Test level. Meanwhile, the Caribbean in 1985-86 wasn't the place to make your debut. Confronted by Viv Richards, Gordon Greenidge, Desmond Haynes and Co., Thomas took only eight wickets at 45.50, as England lost all five Tests. He was also bowled by the first ball he faced in Test cricket - but as a bowler he left a sense of what might have been.

1933 The Test debut of Charles "Father" Marriott, a 37-year-old schoolmaster at Dulwich College, who only played first-class cricket when teaching commitments permitted. Against West Indies at The Oval, the Irish-educated Marriott took 11 for 96 as England won by an innings in ten minutes over two days. It was his only match for England.

2002 Morocco hosted an international cricket match for the first time on this day, when Pakistan and South Africa played the opening game of the Morocco Cup in Tangier. The venue wasn't the only highlight: it was South Africa's first game since the death of Hansie Cronje two months previously. Wasim Akram bowled the first ball of the match - his world-record 335th ODI. Shaun Pollock, South Africa's captain, dedicated his team's 54-run win to Cronje, saying they had "tried to produce a performance he would be proud of".

1948 England reached the lowest point of the home series against Australia, bowled out for 52 - but the main talking-point at The Oval was probably the most dramatic duck in Test cricket. Needing to score only four runs to reach 7000 in Tests and an average of 100, Don Bradman was bowled second ball by Eric Hollies. England lost by an innings, so the Don didn't get a second chance in his final Test. The cricketing gods held a little back at the very end.

1990 A Test-saving effort with added charm. Sachin Tendulkar was just 17 years 112 days when he made his maiden Test century, 119 not out against England at Old Trafford. He was the third youngest to do so, behind Mushtaq Mohammad and Mohammad Ashraful of Bangladesh, who broke the record in September 2001 against Sri Lanka. Tendulkar and Manoj Prabhakar batted through the last two and a half hours with India six down and seemingly heading for defeat.

1984 Before lunch on the last day, Clive Lloyd's West Indies dismissed England for 202 at The Oval to win by 172 runs and complete a "blackwash", the only time England have lost a series 0-5 at home.

1981 One of South Africa's greatest batsmen died on this day. Dudley Nourse averaged 53.81 in his 34 Tests, carrying his country's batting in any number of series. He stood alone against Australia in 1935-36, averaging 57.55 and hitting 231 at the old Wanderers ground, and scored 621 runs in the 1947 series in England. But he saved his most heroic performance for 1951: 208 at Trent Bridge, made with a broken thumb.

2016 A series-levelling ten-wicket win at The Oval for Pakistan, marking a remarkable turn of script from the last time they toured England, in 2010, a series that ended in the humiliation of the spot-fixing scandal. This time around, after beginning with a surprise win at Lord's, Pakistan lost the next two Tests, before bouncing back in this, the final game. Younis Khan¹s 218, ably supported by Asad Shafiq's 109, gave Pakistan an imposing first-innings lead. England's weakness against legspin was exposed - not for the first time by a Pakistani ­ as Yasir Shah took five wickets to dismiss them for 253. It was the fifth win by Pakistan at The Oval, the most Tests they have won at any away venue. For England, it was their fourth defeat in the last seven Tests at the ground.

1976 The day Tony Greig grovelled. In a BBC interview before the 1976 series against West Indies, England's captain Greig came out with a foolish boast: "When the West Indies are down they grovel... and I intend to make them grovel." After defeats in the third and fourth Tests, Greig finally conceded that his comments had been ill conceived, and as England were put to the sword at The Oval, he grovelled on his hands and knees in front of a partisan full-house crowd. But the third day's play ended amid unsavoury scenes, when play had to be suspended for ten minutes after Greig's dismissal triggered a pitch invasion by spectators.

1938 Death of Hugh Trumble, one of the great cricketers of his time. All of his 141 wickets for Australia, a world record at the time, were taken against England. Trumble was the last player to hold world records for most catches (45) as well as wickets in Tests. His brother John also played for Australia.

1885 At Chichester, JS Carrick recorded the highest individual innings, making 419 for West of Scotland against Priory Park. He batted throughout a two-day match. Carrick's record lasted less than 13 months.

2006 It was an innings fit to grace any stage, let alone the home of cricket. Claire Taylor's silky 156 from 151 balls against India eclipsed Viv Richards' record of fastest one-day hundred at Lord's, and she was immediately rewarded with an honours board of her own at the ground.

1895 One of the great allrounders is born. Australian Jack Gregory was a superstar of the 1920s: hostile fast bowler, hard-hitting batsman, superb close fielder. He still holds the record for the fastest hundred (by minutes) for his innings in 1921 against South Africa in Johannesburg - he got to his century in 70 minutes and made 119 in 85. In 24 Tests he made 1146 runs at 36.96 and took 85 wickets at 31.15.

1995 The day Mike Watkinson and Richard Illingworth saved a Test for England - with the bat. They shared 65 years but only six Test caps when it happened, against West Indies at Trent Bridge. With Watkinson crashing 82, and Illingworth doggedly holding up an end with a fractured finger, they added an unbroken 80 for the last wicket at a time when Brian Lara, bang in the middle of a purple patch of 583 runs in three Tests, was hovering ominously over a tight runs/time equation.

1962 Birth of Pakistan batsman Ramiz Raja, whose Test average of 31.83 didn't do justice to his talent. The second of his two Test hundreds was the more valuable, a top score of 114 to earn a draw after India had declared at 465 for 8 in Jaipur in 1986-87. Ramiz later became the chief executive of the PCB, but resigned in 2004 citing increasing media commitments as the reason. He's still one of Pakistan's leading television commentators. His brother Wasim Raja, an allrounder, also played Test cricket.

1982 A day when Gladstone Small's radar needed recalibrating. When he opened the bowling for Warwickshire against Middlesex, his first over lasted 18 balls, including 11 no-balls and a wide. It is thought to be the record for the longest over when no-balls weren't deliberate.

1968 Birth of Indian middle-order batsman Pravin Amre, who scored a century in his debut Test innings, in Durban in 1992-93. Despite an average of 42.50 in 11 matches, his Test career didn't last beyond the following year.

2000 Controversial South African pace bowler Cuan McCarthy died on this day. Although he took 36 Test wickets, including 6 for 43 on his debut against England in 1948-49, his career was blighted by accusations of throwing.

1971 Sri Lankan seamer Pramodya Wickremasinghe was born. Never the most penetrative opening bowler, he took 85 wickets in 40 Tests - and none at all in the 1996 World Cup, in which he played four matches, including the final. He went home with a winner's medal despite finishing the tournament with figures of 0 for 141 in 27 overs.

1979 Kenya wicketkeeper David Obuya, born today, took over national keeping duties when his older brother, Kennedy Otieno, left to play club cricket in Australia. Though Obuya made his debut in 2001, it took him a long time to establish himself - poor scores didn't help. After he made a surprise comeback in 2006, having been out of the side for three years, Obuya's batting improved. He went into the 2007 World Cup having scored three half-centuries, but made only five runs in the tournament. The 2011 World Cup was more memorable because of the half-century he scored against Sri Lanka.

1892 Legspinning allrounder Oscar Charles Scott was born. When England scored 849 in Kingston in 1929-30, "Tommy" Scott's five wickets cost him 266 runs, still third on the all-time list of runs conceded in a Test innings, behind "Chuck" Fleetwood-Smith's 298 in 1938 and Rajesh Chauhan's 276 in 1997-98 - neither of whom could match Tommy's feat of conceding 374 in a Test. His son Alf also played for West Indies.

1966 Death of that decidedly useful allrounder Sibley John Snooke, who had to wait more than 10 years for his last Test, against England in 1922-23. "Tip" Snooke's only century helped South Africa to their only win of the 1910-11 series in Australia, and his 35 Test wickets cost just 20.05 each. He and his brother Stanley helped South Africa avoid defeat at The Oval in 1907.

1909 A dashing Australian left-hander is born. Len Darling was brought in to bolster Australia's beleaguered Test team for the last two Tests of the Bodyline series, and he hit his Test highest of 85 in Sydney. Many thought he was less bothered by the onslaught of Larwood and Co than anyone else save Stan McCabe. However, Darling retired suddenly at 27; it was believed that marriage played an important part in his decision.

August 15 down the years Trueman's 300thFiery Fred misses a hat-trick but reaches a bigger landmark

Fred Trueman was the first bowler to take 300 Test wickets

1964 Colin Cowdrey's slip catch to dismiss Australia's Neil Hawke at The Oval made Fred Trueman the first bowler to take 300 wickets in Test cricket. Trueman, who had missed the previous match at Old Trafford, began the day on 297 wickets, and quickly took that tally to 299, with wickets in consecutive deliveries before the lunch break. Hawke averted the hat-trick but did not survive much longer. The match was drawn and the Ashes stayed with Australia, but for once it didn't matter so much. Asked whether he thought anyone would ever break his record, Trueman is reputed to have replied: "Aye, but whoever does will be bloody tired." Fiery Fred's eventual total of 307 remained the world mark until 1975-76.

1963 Birth of painter and wicketkeeper Robert Charles Russell. "Jack" Russell's 11 dismissals in Johannesburg in 1995-96 set a world record for all Test cricket. England's insistence on picking wicketkeeper-batsmen limited his international career, but even so, he played in 54 Tests, making 165 dismissals. And his own batting wasn't too shabby: he hit two Test hundreds, and his four-hour 29 not out in that Johannesburg Test buttressed Mike Atherton's epic match-saving innings. After retiring from international cricket, Russell was instrumental in the success of his beloved Gloucestershire, who won a hat-trick of one-day trophies in 2000. Eventually he had to give up the game altogether, in 2004, because of persistent injury trouble.

2005 A brilliant 156 from Ricky Ponting, and a stoical 24-ball stand between Australia's last pair of Brett Lee and Glenn McGrath, denied England victory in a match that would have taken them 2-1 up with two to play in the Ashes. The day began amid huge expectations and even bigger crowds: an estimated 10,000 ticketless fans were turned away from Old Trafford before 10am. The lucky few who grabbed their £10 tickets - some had camped overnight for the privilege - watched England chip and chisel away at a dogged Australian resistance. When Ponting fell, with four overs of the match remaining, victory seemed assured, but McGrath - batting a yard outside his crease to negate lbws - stood firm.

2015 Sri Lanka pulled off one of their greatest Test wins, coming from behind to beat India in Galle in the opening game of the series. The hosts were up against a first-innings deficit of 192, and at 95 for 5 in their second dig, an innings defeat loomed. However, Dinesh Chandimal's heroic unbeaten 162 altered the script on the third day, leaving India a tricky 176 to win. They had no answers to Rangana Herath on the fourth day, who along with Tharindu Kaushal spun Sri Lanka to a win, with figures of 7 for 48. The match also went into the record books for Ajinkya Rahane's eight catches, the most by a non-wicketkeeper in a Test.

1981 The century made by Ian Botham in the fifth Test was even better than his match-turning 149 at Headingley earlier in the series. Scored off only 86 balls, the result of classical clean hitting, the Old Trafford ton made the front page of the Times, which wondered if it was the greatest Test century ever. Certainly it was too good for the Australians, whose defeat cost them any chance of regaining the Ashes.

1928 Some claim that were it not for Bradman, Wally Hammond would have claim to being considered the greatest batsman of all time; but Hammond was also an outstanding allrounder. In Cheltenham, on this day, Hammond scored a hundred for Gloucestershire against Surrey. He went on to make a second hundred in the match - one of seven times he did that - and took ten catches in the close field. He also opened the bowling, though he took only one wicket. But in the next match he made amends, taking 15 for 128 against Worcestershire.

1886 Birth of Australian fast-medium left-armer Bill Whitty, whose 65 Test wickets cost only 21.12 each, largely as a result of the 1910-11 series against South Africa, in which he took 37 wickets. When the visitors needed only 170 to win in Melbourne, Whitty took 6 for 17 to bowl them out for 80.

1936 A typically magisterial 217 by Wally Hammond. The first double-century scored against India, it was the highlight of a day on which England scored 471 for 8. They went on to win the Oval Test by nine wickets.

1967 Despite a defiant 68 by Saeed Ahmed at Trent Bridge, Pakistan were all out for 114 (Derek Underwood 5 for 52) to give England a 1-0 lead in the series.

1951 Birth of Essex slow left-armer John Childs, who didn't play Test cricket until nearly 37 years later. His debut at Old Trafford in 1988 made him the oldest to make his England bow since 38-year-old Dick Howorth in 1947. West Indies won both the Tests Childs played in that summer, and his three wickets cost 61 each; but the winter tour to India was cancelled and he wasn't capped again.

1974 Birth of Shivnarine Chanderpaul. When he made his debut against England in Georgetown in 1993-94, he was the first teenager to play in a Test for West Indies since Elquemedo Willett in 1972-73. Chanderpaul's slim frame encases the ideal temperament for a Test batsman. He scored only two hundreds in his first 53 Tests, but improved that ratio significantly after that. His career run graph took a turn upwards from India's tour in 2006 - he scored seven hundreds, 14 half-centuries and averaged 73.09 from 23 Tests in the next three years. In 2005 he had been appointed captain and celebrated with a double-hundred in his home ground in Guyana. But he quit the next year to concentrate on his batting. From then on Chanderpaul became a run machine, reaching 10,000 Test runs in his 140th Test, in 2012 against Australia - in characteristic fashion, while trying to save the match. He averaged 98.7 in 2012, scoring three hundreds, including his second double. He hung at the crease like a limpet during the many times the side was in trouble, and churned out hundreds, seemingly at will. But three years later the unthinkable happened - Chanderpaul, at the age of 40, was dropped from the West Indies side after scoring only one half-century in ten innings. And after he was overlooked for a contract in December, Chanderpaul announced his retirement from international cricket.

1950 Birth of perhaps the fastest bowler of all time. When Jeff Thomson took 0 for 110 on his Test debut in 1972-73, no one knew he had a broken toe - nor could they have suspected the havoc he would wreak on his recall against England in 1974-75. He generated terrifying pace and steep bounce from a slingshot action, and took 33 cheap wickets to help Dennis Lillee destroy England 4-1 and regain the Ashes. The following season he and Lillee had a similarly traumatic effect on the touring West Indians. Held back by assorted major injuries, Thommo nevertheless took exactly 200 Test wickets (100 of them against England) and left behind memories of one of the great fast-bowling partnerships.

1950 When Alf Valentine took his sixth wicket of the innings, his tenth of the match and 33rd of the series, West Indies had dismissed England for 103 to take the Oval Test by an innings and complete a 3-1 win, their first in a series in England. The Three Ws in their batting line-up (Frank Worrell, Everton Weekes and Clyde Walcott) were as famous as the two young spinners who were commemorated in a special calypso, "those two little pals of mine" Sonny Ramadhin and Valentine.

2009Charles Coventry equalled the then-highest score in ODIs. Against Bangladesh, with Zimbabwe playing to save the series, Coventry played a superbly paced innings to reach an unbeaten 194 (off 154 balls), his maiden ODI hundred. But despite equalling Saeed Anwar's record, and single-handedly taking Zimbabwe past 300 - a total larger than any Bangladesh had successfully chased before - he ended on the losing side. Tamim Iqbal's match-winning 154 stole Coventry's thunder, and six months later Sachin Tendulkar took the record, with the format's first double-hundred.

2000 Steve Waugh and the man he once called the best one-day batsman in the world, Michael Bevan (106), put on 222 to help beat South Africa in an ODI at the Colonial Stadium in Melbourne, the first international match to be played indoors.

1860 One of the most influential cricketing figures of all time was born. Martin, Lord Hawke, averaged only 7.85 with the bat in his five Tests - but he was better known as a leader of men. He captained England in four of those matches and set an all-time record by leading Yorkshire to the County Championship eight times from 1893 to 1908. He introduced winter pay for professionals and - with the exception of John Wisden himself - was the oldest Wisden Cricketer of the Year.

1985 Unsung medium-pace swing bowler Richard Ellison completed figures of 6 for 77 on his way to ten wickets in the Edgbaston Test against Australia, which England won by an innings to take a 2-1 lead in the series.

1905 At The Oval, against Australia, on his 33rd birthday, Arthur Jones became the first substitute to keep wicket in a Test, catching Warwick Armstrong off George Hirst. Jones' Test averages were nothing to write home about (13.85 with the bat, 44.33 with the ball) but he was better known as a fielder. Sensational in the slips, he was credited with inventing the gully position. He captained Nottinghamshire from 1900 until just before his death from tuberculosis in 1914.

2014 After being starved of Test cricket for eight years, India Women returned to the country of their previous Test win, England, and upset the hosts in Wormsley. A team with eight debutants rolled England over for 92 on the opening day, and took a slender lead. Jhulan Goswami took four in England's second innings before half-centuries from Smriti Mandhana and Mithali Raj got India home by six wickets. Raj, who also featured in the 2006 win, was there at the end.

1983 Middle-order batsman Narsingh Deonarine was drafted into the West Indies squad during the contracts dispute of 2005 and had a start-stop career in which he made Test and ODI half-centuries against South Africa and Australia. Despite a gutsy 52 against New Zealand in Dunedin, Deonarine was dropped from the Test squad in 2013.

Other birthdays 1934 Sam Trimble (Australia) resourcesCricinfo.com

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Hardik Pandya saved his maiden first-class ton for a Test against Sri Lanka

How many people have hit their maiden first-class century in a Test, as Hardik Pandya did in Pallekele? asked Chandrakant Sarwate from IndiaHardik Pandya, whose previous highest score was 90, was the 41st batsman - the 14th in the current century - to score his maiden first-class hundred in a Test match. The first instance was in the very first Test match of all, by Charles Bannerman for Australia against England in Melbourne in 1876-77. Bannerman's famous 165 retired hurt in that game was actually his only century in a career of 44 first-class matches. The list includes four other Indians: Vijay Manjrekar (1952), Kapil Dev (1978-79), Ajay Ratra (2001-02) and Harbhajan Singh (2010-11, in his 88th Test).

How many wicketkeepers have been out for 99 in a Test, as Jonny Bairstow was? asked Michael Ward from England

Jonny Bairstow's important 99 at Old Trafford was only the third such score by a wicketkeeper in a Test. The first to fall for 99 was Brendon McCullum, for New Zealand against Sri Lanka in Napier in 2004-05. He was followed by MS Dhoni, for India against England in Nagpur in 2012-13. Bairstow was the unlucky 13th batsman to be out for 99 in a Test for England, but the first since Kevin Pietersen against Bangladesh in 2009-10. Mike Atherton and MJK Smith were both dismissed for 99 twice, while Geoff Boycott - who was out for 99 against West Indies in Port-of-Spain in 1973-74 - was also stranded on 99 not out against Australia in Perth in 1979-80. Alex Tudor, against New Zealand at Edgbaston in 1999, is the only other man to make 99 not out in a Test innings for England.

Who was the first man to play 100 ODIs? asked Wayne Johnstone from Australia The first man to reach the milestone of 100 one-day international appearances was Australia's Allan Border, in January 1985. The record he overhauled shortly before was held by another Australian, Rod Marsh, with 92. Border was also the first to play 200 ODIs, reaching the mark in February 1990, at which point Viv Richards had played 177 and Desmond Haynes 171. First to 300 was Mohammad Azharuddin, in September 1998; he had gone past Border's final tally of 273 earlier that year. And the first of the four men so far to reach 400 was Sanath Jayasuriya, in October 2007. At that time Sachin Tendulkar had played 397 ODIs; he went past Jayasuriya in February 2011, and finished with 463 one-day caps.

Hands up if you think he's out for a golden duck

There were four first-ball ducks in South Africa's second innings at The Oval - was this a record? asked George Symons from South Africa

South Africa's disappointing second innings in the third Test at The Oval was indeed the first in Tests to contain four golden ducks - Faf du Plessis, Vernon Philander, Kagiso Rabada and Morne Morkel all perished first ball. With the proviso that there are several matches for which we don't have complete ball-by-ball records, there appear to have been 12 previous instances of an innings containing three golden ducks, most recently by India (Abhinav Mukund, Harbhajan Singh and Praveen Kumar) against England at Trent Bridge in 2011. The first such instance was in an Ashes Test at Edgbaston in 1902, when the Australian trio of Warwick Armstrong, Ernie Jones and Bill Howell were all out first ball. In Melbourne in 2003-04, Sachin Tendulkar, Parthiv Patel and Ajit Agarkar were all out first ball, while Zaheer Khan also faced just one ball, but finished with 0 not out.

I know that the first delivery of a Test match was hit for six only once, but how many times has the first ball of a Test match resulted in a wicket, and which team has done it most often? asked Allan Alexander from the United States

There have now been 30 instances of a batsman being dismissed by the first ball of a Test, most recently when Mitchell Starc dismissed Dimuth Karunaratne in the second Test in Galle in August 2016. West Indies have done it most often - eight times, helped by the fact that Pedro Collins three times dismissed Bangladesh's Hannan Sarkar with the opening delivery of a match. Australia have started five different Tests with a first-ball wicket, England four, India, New Zealand, Pakistan and South Africa three, and Bangladesh one.

Just in case anyone doesn't know about the first-ball six you mention, it was struck by Chris Gayle off Bangladesh's Sohag Gazi in Mirpur in 2012-13. It was actually Gazi's first ball in Test cricket!

Dasgupta: India will want Ashwin primed for overseas tours (2:08)

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India offspinner R Ashwin, who had been left out of the limited-overs leg of the tour of Sri Lanka, will play county cricket this season. He could be available as early as Worcestershire's match against Gloucestershire starting on August 28. ESPNcricinfo had earlier reported that Worcestershire had shown interest in availing Ashwin's services towards the end of their season.

Ashwin's India team-mate left-arm spinner Ravindra Jadeja is also in talks with the counties, but it as yet unclear whom he will play for.

Worcestershire are currently placed second in division two of the county championships. Ashwin could come up against another India team-mate, Cheteshwar Pujara, in his second match as Worcestershire take on the table-leaders Nottinghamshire starting on September 5. Pujara is all set to continue playing for Nottinghamshire, whom he signed up for at the start of the season, following the conclusion of the Tests against Sri Lanka. Pujara scored 223 runs for them in five innings over four matches, including a match-winning hundred against Gloucestershire.

This will be Ashwin's first stint in county cricket. The last time India toured England for a Test series, he was played in only two of the five Tests, losing out to Jadeja in the first three. India have another five-Test series coming up in England next year.

India's next assignment after the Sri Lanka tour is the five ODIs against Australia starting on September 17. If Ashwin is selected for those matches, he might play only two matches in England. If he is not, he could go on till the end of the season as Worcestershire make a push for promotion.

If eight in the first innings wasn't enough, Michael Holding took another six in the second

1976 One of the most extraordinary pieces of sustained fast bowling ended with Michael Holding becoming the only West Indian to take 14 wickets in a Test. On an Oval pitch known as a graveyard for pace bowlers, he twice clean-bowled the England captain Tony Greig, who had suggested before the series that West Indies might "grovel". Holding lived up to his nickname of Whispering Death, taking 8 for 92 and 6 for 57 to wrap up a 3-0 series win.

1972 Birth of Habibul Bashar, the only Bangladesh batsman to score fifties in each innings of a Test on three occasions. Bashar started off with 71 and 30 in his country's debut match, against India in 2000-01, and then made 64 and 76 against Zimbabwe in Harare later the same season. He scored 141 runs in a two-Test series in Australia too. But after a poor World Cup in 2007, Bashar gave up the one-day captaincy and was later dropped from the ODI squad. He announced his retirement from all forms of the game in March 2010.

1964 One of the best and most unforgettable opening batsmen scored the first of his 22 Test centuries. Geoff Boycott was still wearing glasses when he made 113 at The Oval against Graham McKenzie and Neil Hawke. Australia retained the Ashes when rain washed out the last day.

1990 Birth of Sri Lanka batsman Kusal Perera. Likened to Sanath Jayasuriya for his powerful cut and pull, Perera emulated his idol by equalling Jayasuriya's Sri Lanka record for the fastest fifty in ODIs, off just 17 balls, against Pakistan in 2015. An attacking opener and part-time wicketkeeper, Perera debuted in 2013 but struggled for consistency, often getting out after making starts. He scored his first ODI century against Bangladesh in 2014.

2002 Nineteen-year-old Mithali Raj made the highest score in a women's Test with her 214 in a drawn match in Taunton. She broke Karen Rolton's record of 204, set the previous year. It was Raj's third Test and her innings was a clear sign of the mountain of runs she would go on to make. Her record was broken by Pakistani batsman Kiran Baloch in 2004.

1946 After making 128 at The Oval, classy opening batsman Vijay Merchant was run out by Denis Compton, who played for Arsenal when they won the 1950 FA Cup final. Like the skilful winger he was, Compo ran Merchant out by kicking the ball onto the stumps.

1878 Hard-hitting Australian batsman Reggie Duff was born. When rain fell on his Test debut, against England in Melbourne in 1901-02, he was held back until the pitch improved. He then made 104, the first century by a No. 10 in Test cricket. Australia's win levelled the series. After that hundred in his first Test, Duff scored another in his last, top-scoring with 146 at The Oval in 1905.

1880 A fine South African wicketkeeper-captain is born. Percy Sherwell's nine stumpings against Australia in 1910-11 equalled a series record that still stands. He captained his country in every one of his 13 matches - and his only Test century was a real leader's innings. He promoted himself to open the innings at Lord's in 1907 - then hit 115 to save a match in which South Africa had followed on. In his first Test he captained them to their first win over England, in Johannesburg in 1905-06, when he came in at No. 11 to score 22 and help snatch the match by one wicket.

1992 Northamptonshire's Curtly Ambrose lost his bearings at Dean Park, Bournemouth, with a 13-ball over that included seven no-balls. One of them clean-bowled Kevin Shine, who was also caught off another.

1931 One of the more odd scorebook entries. The Rev Jack Parsons arrived for the second day of Worcestershire's match against Warwickshire to discover that he had left his glasses at his hotel. He went to collect them, assuming that the Warwickshire innings would last a while, but he returned to find they had been bowled out and he was listed as absent.

1922 Lancashire offspinner Roy Tattersall was born. Although the considerable shadow of Jim Laker limited his Test appearances, Tattersall had his moments, sharing a match-winning stand with Reg Simpson in Melbourne in 1950-51 and taking 7 for 52 and 5 for 49 to beat South Africa at Lord's in 1951. In all, he took 58 wickets in his 16 Tests.

1924 Very few slow left-armers have played for Australia - although the first played in the very first Test match. Tom Kendall, who died on this day, was the first bowler to take seven wickets in a Test innings. In that inaugural match, in Melbourne in 1876-77, his 7 for 55 helped beat England by 45 runs. He also took six wickets in the next Test, the following month, but he couldn't stop England winning by four wickets, and wasn't capped again.

Andy Caddick took four wickets in an over as West Indies collapsed for 61.

2000 An unforgettable victory for England at Headingley, and the first two-day Test in over 50 years. When West Indies began their second innings midway through the afternoon session, they were exactly 100 runs behind England. After 26.2 overs, they had been demolished for just 61 - their second double-figure score in three Tests - and England had beaten them by an innings for the first time since 1966. It was unforgettably delirious stuff. The cherry on the icing came when Andy Caddick took four wickets in an over, the last three all castled by swinging yorkers.

2014Mahela Jayawardene's final day of Test cricket. It was a perfect farewell, as Sri Lanka wrapped up the SSC Test early on the fifth day to sweep the series 2-0 against Pakistan. The visitors had all but conceded the game on the fourth, having lost 7 for 127 chasing 271. Rangana Herath finished with a five-for to go with his nine in the first innings, for a match haul of 14 for 184. Jayawardene, who scored 54 in his final innings, ended his Test career with 11,814 runs in 149 games with 34 centuries and 50 half-centuries at an average of nearly 50.

1934 The end of one of the monumental partnerships. England needed only a draw at The Oval to retain the Ashes - but big Bill Ponsford made his last Test a memorable one. His 266 achieved the rare feat of outscoring Don Bradman, who hit a mere 244. Their stand of 451, made in only five hours, was then the highest for any wicket in Tests and is still in the top four. England, understandably overwhelmed, lost by a whopping 562 runs.

1920 One of the great wicketkeepers and characters was born. Extrovert and genuinely brilliant standing back or close up, Godfrey Evans played in 91 Tests for England, making 219 dismissals, both world records at the time, and hitting two dashing hundreds. A vivid personality long after his retirement, with the most famous mutton-chop whiskers in cricket, he was the Ladbrokes rep who quoted odds of 500-1 against England winning the famous Headingley Test of 1981.

1956 Birth of dashing batsman and film star Sandeep Patil, who played in 29 Tests for India. His four Test centuries included genuinely brilliant knocks in Adelaide in 1980-81 (174) - a remarkable innings given that in the previous Test he was concussed by a bouncer from Len Pascoe - and Old Trafford in 1982 (129 not out), when he hit six fours in an over from Bob Willis. His important 27 in a low-scoring match helped India win the 1983 World Cup final. After retirement, Patil coached India for a while before moving to take charge of Kenya. He resigned from that post after taking Kenya to the World Cup semi-final in 2003. He was later appointed the head of India's National Cricket Academy in Bangalore.

1926 After the humiliations of the early 1920s and the frustrations of this rain-affected series, England made Percy Chapman captain, recalled the 48-year-old Wilfred Rhodes, and regained the Ashes. On this the last day at The Oval, pace bowlers Maurice Tate and Harold Larwood made the early inroads, after which Rhodes took 4 for 44 with his slow left-armers. Australia were dismissed for 125 and lost the series 0-1.

1967 It wasn't cricket. Well, not according to the MCC. Brian Close's Yorkshire side were booed off the field after they had deliberately wasted time to thwart Warwickshire's chase in the County Championship match at Edgbaston. Close used every delaying tactic in the book to waste time, and the Daily Telegraph wrote that Yorkshire had "been prepared to sacrifice goodwill and reputation for two wretched points". An unrepentant Close was subsequently stripped of the England captaincy as a result. The regulation for a minimum number of overs in the last hour of a match was introduced soon afterwards.

1920 The start of one of the all-time great careers. Wally Hammond made his first-class debut for Gloucestershire against Lancashire in Cheltenham. Ironically, for a batsman of the highest possible class, he made a duck in his first innings. He went on to set any number of world records, among them becoming the first man to score 7000 Test runs and the first to take 100 Test catches. He had a penchant for big scores and notched up 336 not out in Auckland in 1932-33, another Test record at the time - and two majestic double-hundreds against Australia. One of the undisputed legends of the game.

1983 The birth of Cameron White, who once seemed destined to play a significant role for Australia. At the start of his career it was hard to know whether he would develop into a nagging legspinner, aggressive middle-order batsman, intuitive skipper, or a bit of all three. After being tried as a legspinner in India in 2008, he developed into a destructive stroke-maker in the shorter formats. He was appointed Australia's T20 captain in January 2011 but he was replaced by George Bailey the following year. He also captained his IPL franchise Sunrisers Hyderabad.

1936 On the last day at The Oval, England captain and pace bowler Gubby Allen completed figures of 7 for 80, the best of his Test career, to help England beat India by nine wickets and take the three-match series 2-0.

1953 "Is it the Ashes... yes, England have won the Ashes." So blurted Brian Johnston as, after a record wait of 18 years 362 days, and despite losing the toss in all five Tests, England regained the ultimate Anglo-Australian prize. Fittingly, famous Middlesex partners Denis Compton and Bill Edrich were at the crease when the winning runs were hit at The Oval, a boundary off part-time bowler Arthur Morris. It was the first Ashes series to be won by a professional captain (Len Hutton) - and the last Test appearance of Australia's captain Lindsay Hassett, who first played against England in 1938.

1975 Quite a memorable day in Test cricket - considering no play was possible. What promised to be an exciting final day of the Ashes Test didn't take place after the Headingley pitch was vandalised by supporters of prisoner George Davis. Australia needed 225 to win with seven wickets left. The draw, and another in the next Test, gave them the series 1-0.

1898 John Brown and John Tunnicliffe set a new world-record opening stand of 554 for Yorkshire against Derbyshire in Chesterfield. Resuming on 503 for 0, the pair added another 51 before Tunnicliffe, who had been dropped in the first over, was caught in the slips. The stand took only five hours and five minutes.

1976 The tragic death from skin cancer of Ken Wadsworth, who was only 29. Fair-haired and talented, he kept wicket in 33 Tests for New Zealand, making 96 dismissals. He averaged 59 with the bat in the Caribbean series of 1971-72, when New Zealand surprised everyone by drawing all five Tests. But his crucial dropped catch cost New Zealand their first ever win over England, at Lord's in 1973. Sadly, by the time New Zealand achieved that long-awaited victory, in 1977-78, Wadsworth wasn't around to share in the joy.

1985 Opening batsman Tim Robinson (148) and his captain, David Gower, (215) completed their partnership of 331 in only 343 minutes at Edgbaston. Gower, enjoying the high summer of his Test career, hit the highest score by an England captain against Australia since Wally Hammond's 240 at Lord's in 1938. England won by an innings to take a 2-1 lead in the series.

1992 Three players hit hundreds on the same day before Sri Lanka declared at 547 for 8 against Australia at Colombo's Sinhalese Sports Club. Asanka Gurusinha made 137, captain Arjuna Ranatunga 127, and new cap Romesh Kaluwitharana 132 not out. But in the second innings Sri Lanka's last eight wickets fell for 37 runs and they lost the match by 16.

1958Johnny Wardle's invitation to tour with MCC to Australia was withdrawn following a number of articles he wrote criticising the running of Yorkshire, their captain, and several of their players. Yorkshire announced that Wardle would be sacked at the end of the season, and MCC subsequently threw him off the tour, citing the "grave disservice" he had done to the game. Wardle admitted that he was to blame, and despite offers from several other counties, he withdrew to the Lancashire leagues.

1957 Birth of Ian Gould, who kept wicket for England in the 1983 World Cup. Although he never won a Test cap, he did have one moment of glory at that level, coming on as substitute in Melbourne in 1982-83 and taking the catch that removed Greg Chappell for two. England sealed a famous victory by just three runs. Gould captained Sussex when they won the 1986 NatWest Trophy. After the final, his winning speech consisted of "Watch out, Soho". He joined the first-class umpires panel in 2002, and was promoted to the International Umpires Panel in April 2006.

1957 Birth of Hampshire's Dutch seamer Paul-Jan Bakker. His best moment came in the 1996 World Cup, against England in Peshawar, when he bowled Alec Stewart for five. Holland weren't disgraced in a 49-run defeat.

2002Nineteen years on from their greatest triumph - the humbling of West Indies in the 1983 World Cup final - India returned to Lord's for another, no less astonishing, victory. This time, against England in the final of the NatWest Series, India did not start the match as rank outsiders, although the prospect of a tenth consecutive one-day final defeat weighed heavily on the players' minds. And at 146 for 5 chasing 326 for victory, with Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid all back in the pavilion, the contest was as good as over. But nobody, it seemed, had bothered to inform Mohammad Kaif and Yuvraj Singh (combined age 41). The pair added 121 in 106 balls to haul India back into contention, before Kaif sealed a two-wicket win with three balls to spare.

1876Bill Roe set the record for the highest individual innings when he made 415 for Emmanuel College against Caius College in Cambridge. Roe batted for five and a half hours, ran 705 runs and did not give a chance until past his second century. At the close, he complained to the scorer that he made his tally 416... whoever was right, it was better than when he played the day before.

1953An unsung hero is born. Of the big shots in West Indies' heavyweight 1980s side, Hilary Angelo Gomes (you can see why he was called "Larry") was the one most likely to escape the autograph hunters. But he added a crucial element of sobriety to the batting line-up, and was a watertight presence at No. 3 or 4. Packer gave him the chance to break into the Test team, and he took it with two centuries against Australia in 1977-78. Indeed six of Gomes' nine Test hundreds came against the Aussies - in Australia he averaged 70 - none better than a diligent 127 on a Perth flyer in 1984-85. That was the third of four centuries in eight Tests in 1984, two of them in England. His average hovered tantalisingly above 40 until his last Test appearance, against New Zealand in Christchurch in 1986-87, when scores of 8 and 33 dropped it just below. This all looked very unlikely during an early three-year spell at Middlesex, when Gomes failed to make a century.

1979From a prosaic left-hander to a stereotypical one. Just over a year after his Test debut, David Gower carved a regal unbeaten 200 against India at Edgbaston. Already he was building a reputation for himself - the Wisden Almanack said he was "less aggressive than usual" - but his double-hundred still came off only 279 balls, as England careered to 633 for 5.

1954Birth of one of the last orthodox slow left-armers to play a Test for Australia. The Victorian Ray Bright's last series was in India in 1986-87 - he took 5 for 94 in the second innings of the tied Test in Madras - and he had the misfortune to ply his trade during Australia's nadir in the 1980s. The Aussies won only two of Bright's 25 Tests, and in Australia he averaged 68.

1945A more productive Australian spinner is born. Ashley Mallett was the best Australian offspinner of the 20th century, in terms of output. He took 132 wickets from 38 Tests, 74 of them in victories. All of his six five-fors came in his first 13 Tests. The last of them, 8 for 59 against Pakistan in Adelaide in 1972-73, remain the best figures by a finger-spinner in a Test in Australia. Mallett later became a journalist, and wrote biographies of Victor Trumper and Clarrie Grimmett.

2009A prophecy comes true. With Pakistan in a desperate situation on day one of the Test in Colombo, Younis Khan taped a note on a ball that read something like "Fawad Alam will score a hundred." Fawad got out for 16 and Pakistan for 90, so Younis put the ball away. But the next day a fightback was launched. First, Umar Gul and Saeed Ajmal took four each to bowl Sri Lanka out for 240. Then Fawad did as his captain had predicted and helped his side wipe off the first-innings deficit on his way to becoming the first Pakistan batsman to score a century on overseas debut. But while Fawad went on to make 168, and Younis 82, the rest of the batting order collapsed spectacularly - at lunch on day three, they were 294 for 2; by tea, Sri Lanka were 41 runs into their chase of 171 (which they completed the same day). Sri Lanka won the series 2-0.

1974For a side that has won the World Cup twice, India were actually quite slow to join cricket's pyjama party. On this day at Headingley they played their first one-day international, the last of the (then) six Test-playing nations to do so. They put up a decent fight, equalling the then-highest innings total (265) before John Edrich (90 off 97 balls) and Tony Greig (40 off 28) thumped England to a four-wicket victory.

1944Birth of the hearty South Australian seamer Eric Freeman. He played 11 Tests between 1967-68 and 1969-70, peaking with 4 for 52 against West Indies on his home ground in Adelaide in 1968-69. He was dropped for good after Australia's humbling in South Africa a year later.

1984Francois du Plessis, or Faf, born today, was called up to the national side after a stunning domestic season in South Africa in 2010-11, when he topped the limited-overs run charts with 567 runs from ten matches. He made his ODI debut in the home series against India in 2010-11 and played in the World Cup soon after. But it was in Test cricket that du Plessis made his name, as a batsman who could hunker down under pressure: on debut in Adelaide in 2012, he batted over 11 hours (across two innings) and scored a century at No. 7 to save the Test; in the next match in Perth, his 78 prevented a collapse in the first innings and South Africa went on to win the Test and the series. In 2013 he was appointed South Africa's T20 captain. In the Johannesburg Test in December that year, he gave India a terrible fright by batting six and a half hours for his hundred and nearly pulling off a chase of 458. But when South Africa toured India in 2015-16, du Plessis managed only 60 runs from seven innings. He top-scored for his side in the 2015 World Cup semi-final against New Zealand, but ended up on the losing side.